ABSTRACT
Significant changes in matters of health and disease have taken place in China since establishment of the People’s Republic. However deserving that matter may be of full presen tation to Western readers, to do so would be a major undertaking best done by medical and nutritional researchers, and well beyond the scope of our study. Our intent here is a more limited one: to describe the state of health and nutrition of the Chinese people in their homeland
in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with a special focus on the role of foods and food habits as they contributed to the health and well being of the Chinese people.
