WIEGER, LEO. — Jesuit, physician, missionary, and sinologist, b. in Strasbourg on 9 July 1856, d. in Sienhsien (China) on 17 March 1936.
He entered the Order in 1881 and in 1887 transferred to the Chinese mission of southeastern Tcheli, where he practised his profession for the benefit of the sick and became famous for his pharmaceutical laboratory, from which approximately 300,000 packets of medicines were sent annually in every direction. Above all, however, he devoted himself to sinology in order to make the study of the Chinese language, history, religions, and culture easier and quicker for missionaries, compiling works that brought him worldwide renown; finally, he dedicated himself to the study of modern China.
Among his more than 50 publications, in addition to the Collection des rudiments (12 vols., Sienhsien 1895-1906) on the language, catechisms, sermons, etc. for the use of missionaries, the following should be mentioned: Textes historiques de l'histoire de Chine (3 vols., there 1906); Textes philosophiques (3 vols., there 1906; 2 vols., there 1930); Taoisme (2 vols., Hokienfu 1911-13); Histoire des croyances religieuses et des opinions philosophiques en Chine depuis l'origine jusqu'à nos jours (Sienhsien 1917); Histoire politique de la Chine depuis l'origine jusqu'à 1929 (there 1929). On modern China and its various philosophical and political currents, he left Chine moderne (10 vols., there 1921-32), which was received everywhere with great interest.
L. W., in Revue histor. des missions, 10 (1933), pp. 243-58; H. Bernard, Mission, médecine et sinologie. Le p. L. W., in Commissio synodalis Sinensis, 7 (1934), pp. 710-33; id., Encore un mot au sujet du p. W. A propos des ses « Controverses », ibid., pp. 848-64. Celestino Testore