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 passed to the Chinese mission of south-eastern Tcheli, where he practiced his art for the benefit of the sick and became famous for his pharmaceutical laboratory, from which about 300,000 packets of medicine departed annually in all directions. But above all 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 won him worldwide fame; and finally he consecrated himself to the study of modern China.
Among his more than 50 publications there should be cited, besides the Collection des rudiments (12 vols., Sienhsien 1895-1906) on the language, the catechisms, the sermons etc. in the service of missionaries; Textes historiques de l'histoire de Chine (3 vols., ibid. 1906); Textes philosophiques (3 vols., ibid. 1906; 2 vols., ibid. 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 (ibid. 1929). On modern China and the various philosophical and political currents, he left Chine moderne (10 vols., ibid. 1921-32), received everywhere with much interest.
Bibliography3 works
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.
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