Research Catalog

Title

Neither donkey nor horse : medicine in the struggle over China's modernity / Sean Hsiang-lin Lei.

Author

Lei, Xianglin

Publication

Chicago ; London : The University of Chicago Press, 2014.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

x, 382 pages : illustrations; 24 cm

Summary

"Neither Donkey nor Horse tells the story of how Chinese medicine was transformed from the antithesis of modernity in the early twentieth century into a potent symbol of and vehicle for China's exploration of its own modernity half a century later. Instead of viewing this transition as derivative of the political history of modern China, Sean Hsiang-lin Lei argues that China's medical history had a life of its own, one that at times directly influenced the ideological struggle over the meaning of China's modernity and the Chinese state. Far from being a remnant of China's premodern past, Chinese medicine in the twentieth century coevolved with Western medicine and the Nationalist state, undergoing a profound transformation--institutionally, epistemologically, and materially--that resulted in the creation of a modern Chinese medicine. This new medicine was derided as 'neither donkey nor horse' because it necessarily betrayed both of the parental traditions and therefore was doomed to fail. Yet this hybrid medicine survived, through self-innovation and negotiation, thus challenging the conception of modernity that rejected the possibility of productive crossbreeding between the modern and the traditional. By exploring the production of modern Chinese medicine and China's modernity in tandem, Lei offers both a political history of medicine and a medical history of the Chinese state."--Provided by publisher.

Series Statement

Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University

Uniform Title

Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University.

Subjects

• Medicine > China > History > 20th century
• Medicine, Chinese

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 289-358) and index.

Contents

Sovereignty and the microscope: the containment of the Manchurian Plague, 1910-11 -- Connecting medicine with the state: from missionary medicine to public health, 1860-1928 -- Imagining the relationship between Chinese medicine and Western medicine, 1890-1928 -- The Chinese medical revolution and the national medicine movement -- Visualizing health care in 1930s Shanghai -- Science as a verb: scientizing Chinese medicine and the rise of mongrel medicine -- The germ theory and the prehistory of "pattern differentiation and treatment determination" -- Research design as political strategy: the birth of the new antimalaria drug Changshan -- State medicine for rural China, 1929-1949 -- Conclusion: thinking with modern Chinese medicine.

Call Number

JFE 16-7181

ISBN

• 9780226169880
• 022616988X

LCCN

• 2014001559
• 40024021330

OCLC

869460524

Author

Lei, Xianglin, author.

Title

Neither donkey nor horse : medicine in the struggle over China's modernity / Sean Hsiang-lin Lei.

Publisher

Chicago ; London : The University of Chicago Press, 2014.

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Series

Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University

Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University.

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages 289-358) and index.

Local Note

AUTH: NATIONAL YANG-MING UNIVERSITY.

Other Standard Identifier

40024021330

Research Call Number

JFE 16-7181