Rarely is a moment more special in a scholar's career than the publication in one single volume of over a dozen essays composed in a period of more than two decades. There is more reason for celebration when the author, Angela Ki-che Leung, has contributed to the field of history of science and medicine in China in such fundamental ways. The thirteen articles, three of which appear here for the first time in Chinese, were all originally published elsewhere in journals and edited volumes. Taken as a whole, the articles addressed issues related to, but not necessarily overlapping with, the author's two previous monographs on late imperial philanthropic societies and leprosy in China. For the purpose of this review, I will leave aside summaries of individual chapters and attempt instead to offer a few observations after reading the whole book. If each article crystallizes the author's thoughts at a particular moment, what additional insight can we gain by looking at them as a coherent body of inquiries?
