ABSTRACT
The adoption of a laissez-faire policy suggests that the colonial Hong Kong government had no intention of interfering with Chinese customs, including Chinese medicine, for much of the second half of the nineteenth century. Increasing numbers of people today consider Western and Chinese medicine as complementary. As an important means of state regulation, registration not only ensures the quality of medical practitioners but also legitimises certain forms of medical conduct. The 1894 plague dramatically changed the situation and brought Chinese and Western medicine into direct confrontation. In the 1970s, the medical authority defended its exclusive normative framework on the grounds that Chinese medicine did not possess the uniform standards or depth of scientific knowledge that Western medicine did. Systematically excluded and oppressed, Chinese medicine at best enjoyed customary practice. Excluded from the normative medical framework, Chinese medicine survived as a customary medical practice.
