The Meeting of Choi Han-gi and Benjamin Hobson: Focusing on Singi Cheonheom

This study examines Choi Han-gi’s understanding of medicine by focusing on Shin Gi-cheon-heom, and focuses on the fact that Choi Han-gi did not simply introduce Hobson’s medical book, but rather took an active role in the process of positively understanding and accepting Western medicine. The 19th century Korean society in which Choi Han-gi lived experienced rapid changes and faced many challenges both domestically and internationally. However, Choi Han-gi believed that people in the world were largely the same, and that although there were some differences depending on the region they were born in, they were the same. Therefore, he thought that they would find ways to help each other. Although there is criticism that he failed to see through the Western powers’ intention to invade, he accepted Western scientific thought on the basis of a critical foundation for the thought of the time. What this study focuses on is that the encounter between Choi Han-gi, a “bridge connecting Silhak thought and enlightenment thought,” and Benjamin Hobson, a “Chinese translator of Western medical books,” in Shin Gi-cheon-heom left a precedent for the metamorphosis of the transition period to modernity and attempted to reveal that it was a site of acceptance and transformation of foreign ideas.