Soulié de Morant had the opportunity to start learning Chinese at the age of eight, being taught the language by a Jesuit priest. Although he had originally intended to become a physician, he had to give up his plans when his father died. At the age of twenty, Soulié de Morant was employed by a bank, which decided to send him to China in 1899. Given Soulié de Morant's command of the Chinese language, he soon joined the French diplomatic corps, for which he would work for most of the following two decades. He served as French consul in Shanghai and Kunming and French Mixed Court in Shanghai.
Scholarly contributions
Soulié de Morant became convinced of the importance of acupuncture when he witnessed the effects of acupuncture treatment during an epidemic of cholera in Beijing. As he served as consul in several Chinese cities, he sought out teachers who could give him instruction in acupuncture. After Soulié de Morant returned to France after several years of consular service, he was persuaded by the prominent advocate of alternative medicine, Paul Ferreyrolles, to put all his efforts into translating Chinese works on acupuncture. Beginning in 1929, he authored a number of articles and works on acupuncture and he became an advocate of acupuncture treatment in the French medical corps. His work l'Acuponcture chinoise, which was based on Chinese texts from the Ming dynasty such as Zhēnjiǔ Dàchéng, is still regarded as a classic work on acupuncture and has been published in several editions and translations. Soulié de Morant also published a number of works on Chinese history, Chinese literature and Chinese art, as well as a number of translations of Chinese literary works.
Works
Éléments de grammaire mongole. E. Leroux 1903
Les Mongols, leur organisation administrative d'après des documents chinois
La Passion de Yang Kwe-Fei. L’Edition d’art, Paris, 1924
La brise au clair de lune. Grasset, Paris, 1925 - Translation of Haoqiu zhuan
Le Problème des bronzes antiques de la Chine
Exterritorialité et intérêts étrangers en Chine. Paris: Paul Geuthner, 1925.
Théâtre et musique modernes en Chine, avec une étude technique de la musique chinoise et transcriptions pour piano, par André Gaillard
L'Amoureuse Oriole, jeune fille, roman d'amour chinois du XIIIe siècle. Avec dix illustrations chinoises. E. Flammarion 1928
Histoire de l'art chinois. Payot 1928
L'Épopée des jésuites français en Chine . Grasset 1928
Histoire de la Chine de l’antiquité jusqu’en 1929. Paris: Payot, 1929.
Les Preceptes de Confucius, 1929
Divorce anglais. E. Flammarion 1930
Anthologie de l'amour chinois. Mercure de France 1932
Sciences occultes en Chine: la main. Nilson 1932
Précis de la vraie acuponcture chinoise. Mercure de France 1934
L'acuponcture chinoise. 2 vols. Paris: Mercure de France, 1939-1941. Published in English as Chinese acupuncture, edited by Paul Zmiewski. Brookline, MA: Paradigm Publications, 1994.
