Bridie Andrews

Medical care in nineteenth-century China was spectacularly pluralistic: herbalists, shamans, bone-setters, midwives, priests, and a few medical missionaries from the West all competed for patients. This book examines the dichotomy between "Western" and "Chinese" medicine, showing how it has been greatly exaggerated. As missionaries went to lengths to make their medicine more acceptable to Chinese patients, modernizers of Chinese medicine worked to become more "scientific" by eradicating superstition and creating modern institutions. Andrews challenges the supposed superiority of Western medicine in China while showing how "traditional" Chinese medicine was deliberately created in the image of a modern scientific practice.

The Making of Modern Chinese Medicine, 1850-1960

Andrew Cunningham

Western medicine as contested knowledge

Mary P. Sutphen

Over the last century, identity as an avenue of inquiry has become both an academic growth industry and a problematic category of historical analysis. This volume shows how the study of medicine can provide new insights into colonial identity, and the possibility of accommodating multiple perspectives on identity within a single narrative. Contributors to this volume explore the perceived self-identity of colonizers; the adoption of western and traditional medicine as complementary aspects of a new, modern and nationalist identity; the creation of a modern identity for women in the colonies; and the expression of a healer's identity by physicians of traditional medicine.

Medicine and Colonial Identity

Mary Brown Bullock

This volume examines important aspects of China's century-long search to provide appropriate and effective health care for its people. Four subjects—disease and healing, encounters and accommodations, institutions and professions, and people's health—organize discussions across case studies of schistosomiasis, tuberculosis, mental health, and tobacco and health. Among the book’s significant conclusions are the importance of barefoot doctors in disseminating western medicine, the improvements in medical health and services during the long Sino-Japanese war, and the important role of the Chinese consumer. Intended for an audience of health practitioners, historians, and others interested in the history of medicine and health in China, the book is one of three commissioned by the China Medical Board to mark its centennial in 2014.

Bridie Andrews

Books

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