Korean J Med Hist.  2021 Aug;30(2):221-275. 10.13081/kjmh.2021.30.221.

Composition and Genealogical Relation Network of the Medical Family in the Late Joseon Dynasty

• KWON K

• KMID: 2520924
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.13081/kjmh.2021.30.221

Abstract

Uiyeokju Palsebo (醫譯籌八世譜) is a genealogy record that contains the eighth generation of patrilineal ancestors, maternal grandfathers, and fathers-in-law of technical officials who worked in three fields: medicine, linguistics, and mathematics. This book covers members of influential families who monopolized the positions of technical officers. In that respect, it seems to have had an effect like a kind of 'white list'. This paper identifies the range of families based on common ancestors above eight generations according to the editing method of this book, attempting various statistical analysis.
The results of the analysis shows that it is possible to determine the size of the medical families, which varied according to the number of medical bureaucrats and the distance of kinship between them. Most of the families had workers in the three fields of medicine, linguistics, and mathematics, but there were also ‘families more specialized in medicine’ that produced a large number of medical figures.
The ancestors of medical figures were mainly engaged in the three fields of medicine, linguistics, and mathematics, but there were also a small number of officials in charge of “unhak(雲學: including astronomy, geography, and fortune-telling),” law, art, and transcription. For distant ancestors from common ancestors to the fifth generation, the proportion of technical officers was small, but for relatively close ancestors, the proportion of technical officers, especially medical officers, increased. It can be seen that the status as a medical officer tends to be hereditary further down the generations.
The fields of activity of the maternal grandfathers and fathers-in-law of medical figures were more concentrated in the medical field. This can be the result of confirming the influence of the marital relationship network that was formed in the close period with the medical persons being investigated. In this paper, only medical figures were considered as primary research subjects, but their macroscopic networks were relatively evenly spread out in the three fields of medicine, linguistics, and mathematics. In this network, Uiyeokju Palsebo contained homogeneous hierarchies that could continuously dominate a specific field of government office.

Keyword

medical officials; family; Uiyeokju Palsebo (醫譯籌八世譜: genealogy of 8 generations of officials in 3 fields: medicine; linguistics; and mathematics); relation network