[Wu Youxing and pestilential epidemics : a medical expert in late Ming China]

FACED WITH THE TERRIBLE MORTALITY OF THE EPIDEMICS DURING THE LAST YEARS OF THE MING DYNASTY: (1368-1644) AND THE INEFFICACY OF THE TREATMENTS APPLIED, WU YOUXING: (ca 1580-1660), the author of the Wenyilun (Treatise on warm factor epidemics), completed in 1642, proposed a new etiological explanation of these diseases, with a highly critical attitude towards his predecessors. Reception to the book was mixed; it sometimes encountered opposition due to the audacity of some of Wu Youxing's conceptions, but also, most likely, to the discrepancy between the author's assertions and the failures in actual application.