First published in 1983. Beginning with the period of the early expansion of Western missionary medicine, this account covers the chaotic years of Nationalist rule to the foundations of the People's Republic in 1949. It trances the major influences on health care since then and describes the conflicts of State bureaucracy, Party and medical profession in their attempts to match political objectives in health care to resources available. An outline of the theory of Chinese traditional medicine, together with detailed accounts of acupuncture and plant drugs are also discussed, as are specific features of the health care system, such as population control, medical education, nutrition and psychiatry.

The most misunderstood force driving health and disease The story of the invention and use of electricity has often been told before, but never from an environmental point of view. The assumption of safety, and the conviction that electricity has nothing to do with life, are by now so entrenched in the human psyche that new research, and testimony by those who are being injured, are not enough to change the course that society has set. Two increasingly isolated worlds--that inhabited by the majority, who embrace new electrical technology without question, and that inhabited by a growing minority, who are fighting for survival in an electrically polluted environment--no longer even speak the same language. In The Invisible Rainbow, Arthur Firstenberg bridges the two worlds. In a story that is rigorously scientific yet easy to read, he provides a surprising answer to the question, "How can electricity be suddenly harmful today when it was safe for centuries?"

Her analysis contributes a broader and deeper understanding of the Incredible Famine than has previously been available in English and situates the tragedy alongside Irish and Indian famines to provide a truly global comparison of cultural responses to famine in the nineteenth century."--BOOK JACKET.

The Routledge Handbook of Chinese Medicine is an extensive, interdisciplinary guide to the nature of traditional medicine and healing in the Chinese cultural region, and its plural epistemologies. Established experts and the next generation of scholars interpret the ways in which Chinese medicine has been understood and portrayed from the beginning of the empire (third century BCE) to the globalisation of Chinese products and practices in the present day, taking in subjects from ancient medical writings to therapeutic movement, to talismans for healing and traditional medicines that have inspired global solutions to contemporary epidemics. The volume is divided into seven parts: Longue Durée and Formation of Institutions and Traditions Sickness and Healing Food and Sex Spiritual and Orthodox Religious Practices The World of Sinographic Medicine Wider Diasporas Negotiating Modernity This handbook therefore introduces the broad range of ideas and techniques that comprise pre-modern medicine in China, and the historiographical and ethnographic approaches that have illuminated them. It will prove a useful resource to students and scholars of Chinese studies, and the history of medicine and anthropology. It will also be of interest to practitioners, patients and specialists wishing to refresh their knowledge with the latest developments in the field. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license

This book examines the encounter between western and Asian models of public health and medicine in a range of East and Southeast Asian countries over the course of the twentieth century until now. It discusses the transfer of scientific knowledge of medicine and public health approaches from Europe and the United States to several Asian countries — Singapore, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Japan, Taiwan, and China — and local interactions with, and transformations of, these public health models and approaches from the nineteenth century to the 1950s. Taking a critical look at assumptions about the objectiveness of science, the book highlights the use of scientific knowledge for political control, cultural manipulation, social transformation and economic needs. It rigorously and systematically investigates the historical developments of public health concepts, policies, institutions, and how these practices changed from colonial, to post-colonial and into the present day.

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. In the century that followed, pressure to reform traditional medicine in China came not only from this small clutch of Westerners, but from within the country itself, as governments set on modernization aligned themselves against the traditions of the past, and individuals saw in the Western system the potential for new wealth and power. 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.

Explores the history of the 'Madagascar Youths', young people trained by the British, and their impact on Malagasy-British relations.