ABSTRACT
Chinese medicine underwent dramatic changes over the course of the twentieth century, thanks to the convergence of technological, social, and political factors. By the century’s end, medical practice and theory in China had shifted substantially towards biomedical theory and nosology, even though Chinese medicine remained a major part of both the official medical system and daily practice. Chinese individuals and institutions increasingly adopted new medical technologies predicated on germ theory. These included aseptic midwifery, sera and vaccines for infectious diseases, and, by mid-century, antibiotics. Rising interest in greater health among the civilian population was matched by, and interrelated to, growing state attention to public health that endured across the Qing, Republican, and Communist eras. Wars of conquest and the pneumonic plague pandemic in Manchuria (1910–11) pushed each of these Chinese states to commit to governing civilian healthcare. All of these factors dovetailed with another influential force that long predated the twentieth century: competition between elite physicians and ‘folk’ practitioners for patients and prestige. When this contest moved to the realm of politics, learned physicians gained the upper hand over their long-term adversaries whom they could now charge not only with medical incompetence, but also anti-modern backwardness.
