ABSTRACT
Wuying deng xia song yinzhen 无影灯下颂银针 (An Ode to the Silver Needle under a Shadowless Lamp, 1974) was one of a small handful of films about medicine released during the latter part of the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). It was the only Chinese film from the period that portrayed the practice of ‘acupuncture anaesthesia’ (zhenci mazui 针刺麻醉) in an urban hospital setting. The film celebrated acupuncture anaesthesia as one of the crowning achievements of Traditional Chinese Medicine. But more importantly, through the lead character Dr Li Zhihua 李志华, Wuying deng xia song yinzhen presented a model of the revolutionary, Maoist doctor who was selflessly devoted to serving the Chinese masses. This chapter places the film in the context of the larger, protracted debate on the political status of expertise and experts which took place throughout the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. In the case of medicine and public health, this involved the struggle of how to interpret correctly the legacy of the famous Canadian surgeon and Communist martyr Norman Bethune (1890–1939), who contracted septicaemia while operating on a wounded Chinese soldier during the Second Sino-Japanese War.
