The tension between the belief in the efficacy of animal drugs, which supposedly have more vitality than plants, and the concern for biodiversity, which is threatened by the use of charismatic body parts, such as rhino horns, tiger paws, or shark fins, is the motor of a dynamic quest of substitutes. The practice of wild animal farming, applied to bees, seahorses, and geckos during the same period, relied on the idea that animal body parts or animal products become renewable once the animal is trapped and raised. While the tension between multispecies ethics, public health, and techno-scientific innovation is at the heart of this fascinating and accurate investigation, it also raises ontological questions about the borders between humans and nonhumans or between wild and domestic animals, as pathogenic emergences show that these borders are constantly crossed and blurred by human practices, particularly in Asian contexts whose historicity must be documented. frederic.keck@college-de-france.fr
Mao's Bestiary: Medicinal Animals and Modern China By Liz P. Y. Chee,. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2021. 288 pp. ISBN: 9781478014041 (paper)