Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T17:11:20.244Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Traditional Medicine in Communist China: Science, Communism and Cultural Nationalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Extract

In recent years a number of visitors to China have remarked on the rather surprising preservation and even revival of the country's ancient native medical tradition. To Westerners, so accustomed to associating modern medicine with progress and scientific advance, the continued existence of this obviously prescientific art has been one of the more curious anachronisms in the new society. Moreover, for a revolutionary government so firmly committed to science and modernisation, this support and encouragement of traditional medicine has seemed paradoxical indeed.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1965

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Greene, Felix, China: The Country Americans are Not Allowed to Know (New York: Ballantine, 1961), p. 325Google Scholar.

2 Clark, Gerald, Impatient Giant: Red China Today (New York: McKay, 1959), p. 138Google Scholar.

3 Two of the most interesting descriptions are Snow, Edgar, The Other Side of the River (New York: Random House, 1961)Google Scholar, ch. 42, and Schmid, Peter, The New Face of China (New York: Harrup, 1958)Google Scholar, ch. VI.

4 Tu-hsiu, Ch'en, “Ching Kao Ch'ing-nien” (Call to Youth) Hsin Ch'ing-nien (New Youth), Vol. 1, No. 1, 09 15, 1915, p. 6Google Scholar.

5 See notably his famous short story, “Yao” (Medicine), translated in Selected Stories of Lu Hsun (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1960), pp. 4757Google Scholar.

6 Hsiu, , “Dialectical Materialism and Medicine,” Ta Kung Pao: I–hsueh Choupao (weekly medical supplement of Ta Kung Pao) No. 160, 10 12, 1932Google Scholar.

7 The entire debate over traditional and modern medicine and what it reveals of attitudes towards science, modernisation and cultural identity will be explored in a forthcoming study.

8 Wo-men Mu-ch'ien te Chin-chi Jen-wu” (“Our Present Urgent Responsibility”), Hung-ssu Wei-sheng (Red Public Health), No. 2, 06 1933, p. 5Google Scholar. This and similar journals and government health directives were captured by the National Government in its “annihilation campaigns“ against the Red areas and preserved in the Ch'en Ch'eng collection on Taiwan, which has subsequently been microfilmed by the Hoover Institute.

9 Kuo Fang (National Defence), Eighth Route Army Health Journal, Vol. 1, No. 1, 11 1939, p. 2Google Scholar, and China Defense League, In Guerilla China (Chungking: 1943), p. 32Google Scholar.

10 See for example Cheng-yang, Jao, “Wo-men te Ch'i-wang Na-li te Fang-hsiang” (“The Direction We Are Headed In”), Kuo Fang, Vol. 1, No. 9, 11 1939, p. 2Google Scholar.

11 Chuang, T'an, “Tui-yü Chung-kuo Mu-ch'ien I-hsueh te Shang-t'ao” (“A Discussion of China's Present Medicine”) Kuo Fang, Vol. 2, No. 3–4, 12 1941, pp. 716Google Scholar.

12 Ibid. p. 10.

13 As in Ching-heng, Pao, “Chung-i Wei-shemme Yao Chin-hsiu?“ (“Why Must Chinese Medicine Improve?”), Chung-i Chin-hsiu Tsu-chih Kuan-li Hsuan-chi (Selections on the Organisation and Management of Improving Chinese Medicine) (Peking: Central Ministry of Public Health, 1953), p. 11Google Scholar.

14 Original in Yenan, Chieh-fang Jih-pao (Liberation Daily) 10 31, 1944Google Scholar, reprinted in Yen Ching-ch'iu, ed., Chung-i te Hsueh-hsi, Tzu-k'o (Materials for Studying Chinese Medicine) (Shanghai: Jen-min Ch'u-pan She 1950), p. 1. There is a textual problem here as the text quoted does not correspond to that given in Mao Tse-tung Hsuan-chi (Selected Works), Vol. 3 (Peking: Jen-min Ch'u-pan She, 1955), p. 1010Google Scholar. The meaning is close, however, and here I translated the 1950 quote.

15 Hua-chung, I-wu Tsa-chih (Central China Medical Personnel Journal) (New Fourth Army, Military Health Unit), Vol. 1, No. 1, 1946Google Scholar, and Wei-sheng (Hygiene) (Yenan: 1945)Google Scholar.

16 The most notable of these was the Rockefeller-financed Peking Union Medical College. Its administrative director at that time, Miss Mary Ferguson, has recounted the awe with which the first Communist medical cadres to enter Peking observed the hospital's modern machinery and techniques. Conversation with writer, New York, July 1963.

17 Chen, William Y. uses the figure 12,000, “Medicine and Public Health,” Gould, Sidney, ed. Sciences in Communist China (Washington: American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1961), p. 384Google Scholar. There are, however, slightly higher estimates during the post-war years ranging up to 20,000, in “Lun Chung-i Wen-t'i” (“On the Chinese Medicine Question”), Ta Kung Pao (Hong Kong), 11 26, 1946, p. 10Google Scholar.

18 The lack of established qualifications for recognition as a Chinese-style doctor makes estimates of their total number very difficult. For the year 1955, after the government had defined medical qualifications, the national total of Chinese-style doctors was given as 486,700. Jen-min Shou-tse (People's Handbook) (Peking: Ta Kung Pao Publishing House, 1957), p. 608Google Scholar.

19 Ch'eng, Ho, “Chung-hsi-i T'uan-chieh yü Chung-i te Chin-hsiu Wen-t'i” (“The Question of Uniting Chinese and Western Medicine and the Improvement of Chinese Medicine”) Jen-min Jih-pao (People's Daily), 07 13, 1950Google Scholar.

20 “Speech of Deputy Chairman Chu to First National Public Health Conference,” in Yeh, , ed. (Materials for Studying Chinese Medicine), pp. 25Google Scholar.

21 “Ti-i Tseng Ch'uan Kuo Wei-sheng Hui-i Tsung-chieh Pao-kao,” (“Comprehensive Report of First National Public Health Conference”), ibid. p. 26.

22 In the twentieth century local associations of traditional doctors had sprung up from time to time, either in direct response to Western medicine's threat to their particular interests through government regulation, or to incorporate some of the new scientific knowledge which threatened to supersede the very basis of their existence. The only national organisation was the “National Medicine Academy” founded in the early nineteen-thirties and closely associated with important figures of the Kuomintang right wing.

23 In this it resembled the Soviet “Medical Workers' Union” (Medsantrud) except that Chinese unions were originally organised on a provincial basis. Strikingly different, however, was the continuation and control of a modern physicians' professional organisation, “The Chinese Medical Association,” in contrast to the Bolsheviks' abolition of all such professional medical associations.

24 Text of the Ministry of Public Health directive on establishing these associations is given in Pei-ching Chung-i (Peking Chinese Medicine), Vol. 1, No. 3, 06 1952, pp. 23Google Scholar.

25 Text of provisional regulations appears in Ta Kung Pao, May 22, 1951.

26 Text in Pei-ching Chung-i, Vol. 1, No. 2, 07 1951Google Scholar.

27 Hsing-yuan, Ku et al. , “Survey of Combined Practice Clinics,” History of Medicine and Organization of Health Services, Vol. 2, No. 3, 03 25, 1958Google Scholar, translated in Joint Publications Research Service (JPRS), (Hong Kong), No. 1480.

28 The writer has talked with a traditional doctor who was able to resist pressures to give up his private practice in Canton until the Great Leap Forward of late 1958. Interview, Macao, August 1964.

29 In places like Shanghai the ideal combined type was prevalent from the start, 60 out of 89 United Clinics in 1954. Ku, , Survey, p. 3Google Scholar. But provincial totals give a different picture for the country as a whole. For example, in Kiangsi in 1953, only 69 out of 857 were combined. Kuang-ming Jih-pao (Kuang-ming Daily), October 26, 1953. And, in Hunan, 188 out of 2,185. Changan Radio, November 16, 1954 in Union Research Institute Classified Files, Union Research Service (URS) (Hong Kong)Google Scholar.

30 Afterwards, the then Deputy Minister of Public Health, Ch'eng, Ho, acknowledged in his self-criticism that “Chinese doctors could not legally join hospitals,” translated in “Examination of the Mistaken Thinking in Health Work,” URS, Vol 3 No 2006 8, 1956, p. 283Google Scholar.

31 Traditional doctors were used intensively in the various mass public health drives such as that accompanying the Korean War bacteriological warfare scare. A detailed description of their activities in Hopei, and Kiangsi, may be found in Kuang-ming Jihpao, 05 23, 1954Google Scholar.

32 Text of these, dated December 27, 1951, is printed in People's Daily, January 2, 1952.

33 A breakdown of the class hours shows that the schools provided 288 hours on basic medical sciences, 123 hours on traditional medical practices, 72 hours on politics, and the remaining 381 hours on various areas of clinical application apparently mainly according to Western medicine. The classes had 116 hours on basic medical sciences, 18 hours on social science and the remaining 184 hours on clinical application. From tables in Pei-ching Chung-i, Vol. 1, No. 3, 06 1952Google Scholar.

34 Scattered provincial figures suggest that well under 25 per cent. of the traditional physicians had taken such courses by late 1954.

35 Chu Teh's speech to the First Public Health Conference in 1950. Yeh, , ed., Materials for Studying Chinese Medicine, p. 2Google Scholar.

36 Chia-tung, Teng, “Wo-men Yao P'i-p'an Kuo-ch'u Lien-Ho te I-Ch'ieh,” (“We Must Criticize Everything About the Past Union Medical College,”) I Yao Hsueh (Medicine and Pharmacy), Vol. 5, No. 1, 01 1952, pp. 34Google Scholar.

37 One of the best publicized was “Cheng-ch'ueh te Tui-tai Chung-kuo I-hsueh I-ch'ang,” (“Take a Correct Attitude towards China's Medical Legacy”), People's Daily, Augest 26, 1953. Also in Hsin Hua Yueh-pao (New China Monthly), No. 9, 1953, pp. 204205Google Scholar.

38 “Organize and Bring Forth the Strength of Native Medicine,” Kuang-ming Jih-pao, December 2, 1953, translated in Survey of the China Mainland Press (SCMP), (Hong Kong: U.S. Consulate General), No. 711, pp. 2326Google Scholar.

39 Endeavor to Carry Out the Spirit of the National Higher Education Conference,” Kuang-ming Jih-pao, 08 13, 1954, translated in SCMP No. 885, p. 11Google Scholar.

40 “Kuan-ch'e Tui-tai Chung-i te Cheng-ch'ueh Cheng-ts'e” (“Implement the Correct Policy Regarding Chinese Medicine”), People's Daily, October 20, 1954.

41 Pao-ch'ün, Ni, “Nu-li Hsueh-hsi Chung-i I-hsueh” (“Strive to Study Chinese Medicine”), Chieh-fang Jih-pao (Liberation Daily), 10 13, 1954Google Scholar.

42 As in Chengtu, , Kung Shang Too Pao, 11 10, 1954Google Scholar.

43 Cheng-ch'ueh te Tui-tai Chung-kuo I-hsueh I-ch'ang,” Hsin Hua Yueh-pao, No. 9, 1953, p. 204Google Scholar.

44 Unfortunately these issues appear to be unavailable outside of China so we have to rely on reports of the content of these articles.

45 Quoted from Tung-pei Wei-sheng (Northeastern Health), Vol. 1, No. 9, 1950Google Scholar “Pi-hsu P'i-p'an Ch'ing-shih … Chung-i,” (“We must criticize slighting of Chinese Medicine”) in Kuang-ming Jih-pao, editorial, March 27, 1955.

46 Ibid. pp. 2–3.

47 For example, K'o-hsueh T'ung-pao (Science Bulletin), No. 6, 1955, translated in SCMP No. 1094 (supplement), pp. 16Google Scholar.

48 Quoted in Kuang-ming Jih-pao, March 27, 1955.

49 Some of these articles are translated in SCMP, April 2, 1955, No. 1031, pp. 36–38.

50 The early stages of the “Anti-Wang Pin Campaign” are summarised in “Tui-yü Wang Pin Ch'i-shih Chung-i te Tz'u-ch'ang Chieh-chi Ssu-hsiang Chan-k'ai P'i-p'an,” (“Developing Criticism of Wang Pin's Bourgeois Thought in Despising Chinese Medicine”), Nan-fang Jih-pao (Southern Daily), May 19, 1955.

51 According to an informant who worked in the Ministry of Public Health in these years, the Minister, Li Te-chuan, is largely a figurehead appointed because of her husband Feng Yü-hsiang and her own leftist activities before 1949. Ho Ch'eng, who had been with the Red Army medical units since Kiangsi days, was the real power in the Ministry until his downfall over the question of traditional medicine. Personal interview, Hong Kong, July 1964.

52 The informant from the Ministry of Public Health was present at mass criticism meetings where Wang refused to acknowledge any error. Furthermore, he expressed dissatisfaction at being reassigned to Sinkiang and subsequently went through labour reform. In the Hundred Flowers period he revealed himself as an unreconstructed rightist and has been dropped from any important position. Interview, Hong Kong, July 1964.

53 Text of his self-criticism from People's Daily, November 19, 1955, is translated in URS, Vol. 3, No. 20, pp. 280–285.

54 The resolution is translated in SCMP, February 5, 1956, No. 1234, pp. 9–10. However, because of his self-criticism Ho has since been made president of the Army Medical College, a respectable, but powerless, position. Interview, Hong Kong, July 1964.

55 Yuan-hu, Li, “Chi-chi Ts'an-chia P'i-p'an Wei-sheng Pu-men-chung te Tzu-ch'ang Chieh-chi Wei-hsin-chu-i Ssu-hsiang te Tao-cheng,” (“Actively Join the Struggle to Criticise the Bourgeois Idealistic Thought of Elements in the Ministry of Public Health”), Nan-fang Jih-pao, 04 20, 1955Google Scholar.

56 “There has prevailed a trend of blindly worshipping Western culture among the bourgeois class and intellectuals who tend to belittle and even negate the cultural legacy of their own country.” P'ei-san, Li, “Take a Correct Attitude Towards the Medical Legacy of the Motherland,” Hsueh-hsi (Study) 10 2, 1955, translated in Excerpts from China Mainland Magazines, No. 15, p. 1Google Scholar.

57 Hsiao-feng, Jen, “Criticise Comrade Ho Ch'eng's Error in his Policy Towards Chinese Medicine,” translated in URS, Vol. 3, No. 20, 06 8, 1956, pp. 287298Google Scholar.

58 “A Chinese Doctor's Strength is Developed,” Kung-jen Jih-pao Workers' Daily) (Peking) 08 10, 1955Google Scholar, discusses an 86-year-old traditional physician who is now a representative to the National People's Congress.

59 Statistics compiled by Nun, G. Raymond, Chinese Publishing Statistics, 19491959Google Scholar.

60 Chu-Yen, , Chung-kuo Ku-tai K'o-hsueh Ch'eng-chiu (Peking, Jen-min Ch'u-pan She, 1955)Google Scholar and Hui-chen, Chang, Li Shih-chen (Shanghai: Jen-min Ch'u-pan She, 1955)Google Scholar.

61 Chu, , Chung-kuo, p. 52Google Scholar.

62 As in “In Some Cases Chinese Medicine Surpasses Western,” People's Daily, December 20, 1955, translated in SCMP, No. 1234, p. 6.

63 Official attitudes towards China's cultural tradition in the specific fields of archaeology, architecture, theatre and medicine are discussed in Travert, Andre, “The Attitude of the Communist Party Towards China's Cultural Legacy,” Symposium on Economic and Social Problems of the Far East (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1962), pp. 353368Google Scholar. My own unpublished work on painting and theatre substantiates this impression.

64 A typical use of these “roving teams” was reported for Nanhai Hsien near Canton where 460 Chinese-style doctors were organised “to penetrate deeply each village to serve the peasants.” Each sub-district (ch'ü) organised three or four such teams. Ta Kung Poo (Hong Kong), 11 17, 1954Google Scholar.

65 Figures from People's Daily, September 23, 1955, and September 12, 1957, respectively.

66 People's Daily, September 12, 1957.

67 “Kwangtung Chinese Medicine Shows a New Force,” Wen Hui Pao (Hong Kong), 01 9, 1959Google Scholar.

68 People's Daily, September 12, 1957.

69 Such a hospital in Fukien, is described in “In a New Style Chinese Medicine Hospital,” Chung-kuo Hsin-wen (China News), 09 29, 1961Google Scholar.

70 Described in “Fa-chan Tsu-kuo I-yao I-ch'ang,” (“Develop the Medical Legacy of the Motherland”) People's Daily, December 20, 1955.

71 Tsingtao Jih-pao (Tsingtao Daily), December 12, 1954.

72 Most provinces seem to have set up at least one committee to stimulate and coordinate research on traditional medicine. See, for example, “Provincial Chinese Medicine Research Centre Established,” Shensi Jih-pao (Shensi Daily), September 12, 1956, and “Kwangtung Chinese Medicine and Drugs Research Committee Meets,” Nan-fang Jih-pao, April 30, 1956.

73 In Shanghai, for instance, there was established an institute to do nothing but textual research in the ancient medical literature. See Kuang-ming Jih-pao, July 18, 1956.

74 There is a summary of such work in Present Status and Future of China's Research in Pharmacology,” Sheng-li K'o-hsueh Chin-chan (Progress in Physiology), Vol 1, No. 1, 03 1957, pp. 2330Google Scholar. Translated in JPRS, June 11, 1959, DL 1134.

75 See “Founder of Electric Acupuncture,” Kung-jen Jih-pao (Peking), 05 2, 1956Google Scholar.

76 Text in Kuang-ming Jih-pao, December 28, 1954.

77 The informant from the Ministry of Public Health reported that such study was compulsory for all, even non-medical personnel, and was quite intensive. Hong Kong, Interview, July 1964.

78 This impression is supported by extensive interviews with doctors who have practised in China by a project under the direction of Professors Ezra Vogel and John Pelzel of Harvard. Hereafter referred to as Vogel, “Unpublished manuscript.”

79 See Kuang-ming Jih-pao, May 9, 1956.

80 All Medical Schools to Teach Chinese Medicine,” People's Daily, 04 29, 1956, translated in SCMP, No. 1280, p. 14Google Scholar.

81 “Wei Kuan-ch'e Tang te Chung-i Cheng-ts'e erh Nu-li” (“Strive to Implement the Party's Chinese Medicine Policy”), Ch'ang Chiang Jih-pao (Ch'ang Chiang Daily) (Wuhan) 10 3, 1955Google Scholar.

82 Yang, Ling, “Integrating Chinese and Western Medicine,” Peking Review, No. 43, 12 23, 1958, p. 23Google Scholar.

83 “Chin-nien yu Wu-ch'ien te Hsi-i Hsi-t'ung Hsueh-hsi Chung-i” (“This Year over 5,000 Western Doctors are Studying Chinese Medicine”), Kuang-ming Jih-pao, May 9, 1956.

84 “Chi-chi Pei-yang Chung-i …” (“Actively Train Chinese Doctors”), People's Daily editorial, May 27, 1956.

85 Figures here are very unsatisfactory, perhaps due to inconsistencies in registering disciples. The Chinese Medical Journal gives 52,000 for 1958 (December 1959, p. 490.) Others are considerably higher.

86 Hsin Shao-chou, “Unequal Contending in Chinese Medicine,” Heilungchiang Jih-pao (Heilungchiang Daily), June 8, 1957.

87 Apart from the difficulty of testing traditional medical qualifications, the official approval of “local specialists,” gave a free reign to many dubious practices. “A practitioner is qualified if he has only one special skill … if his skill is actually proved and trusted by the people.” Jen Hsiao-feng, URS, Vol. 3, No. 20, p. 295. The “people” then rather than medical authorities, actually became the judge of his qualifications.

88 Nan-fang Jih-pao, May 10, 1957.

89 Ti-chien, Chao, “The Phenomena of Still Despising Chinese Medicine,” Wen Hui Pao (Shanghai) 05 23, 1957Google Scholar.

90 Quoted in People's Daily, September 12, 1957.

91 Quoted in People's Daily, July 31, 1957.

92 Chi-chün, Chang, “In Western Medicine Studying Chinese Medicine There is No Middle Ground,” Wen Hui Pao (Shanghai), 11 28, 1958Google Scholar.

93 “Chinese Medical Work Also Must follow the Mass Line,” Kuang-ming Jih-pao, editorial, November 24, 1958.

94 Baum, Richard D. in his article, “‘Red and Expert’: the Politico-Ideological Foundations of China's Great Leap Forward,” Asian Survey, Vol. 4, No. 9, 09 1964, pp. 10481057CrossRefGoogle Scholar, notes that “emphasis on human will” over technical factors or material conditions plus heightened politico-ideological consciousness were the two main features of the Great Leap mentality. The former is obvious in the exaltation of popular medical wisdom over scientific methods, the latter in strictures on wholeheartedly accepting Party leadership.

95 “Collect Prescriptions from among the People; Develop the Treasure House of Chinese Medicine,” People's Daily, editorial, December 14, 1958.

96 Andre Travert in his discussion of traditional medicine entirely misses this crucial point about its social and ideological ramifications. “What is most astonishing in the case of ancient Chinese medical science is that it did not suffer, as did other branches of cultural activity, from the reversal to the ‘more present, less past’ line which occurred in 1958 with the launching of the great leap forward,” Travert, , Symposium, p. 364Google Scholar.

97 Text printed in People's Daily, November 20, 1958.

98 The Sun Yat-sen Medical College in Canton, for example, required 108 hours of traditional medicine courses in each of the first two years and 48 hours for the last two. Wen Hui Pao (Shanghai), 12 15, 1938Google Scholar.

99 Kung-jen Jih-pao, December 25, 1958.

100 Information from Canton practising physician, December 1963. Vogel, “Unpublished manuscript.”

101 New China News Agency (NCNA), Peking, 11 21, 1958, in SCMP, No. 1902, pp. 2324Google Scholar.

102 Information from a senior doctor at largest Shanghai Pulmonary Hospital, July 1, 1964. Vogel, “Unpublished manuscript.”

103 ibid. See also “Western Doctors Broadly Apply Chinese Medicine,” Kuang-chou Jih-pao (Canton Daily), January 11, 1959.

104 As in the celebrated case of a Shanghai hospital rejoining a young worker's completely severed hand. “Why Grafting a Severed Hand can be Successful,” People's Daily, August 6, 1963.

105 “Actively Develop the Production of Chinese Medicinal Herbs,” People's Daily, editorial, February 23, 1961.

106 The national research institute for Chinese veterinary medicine in Lanchow has been especially active in publishing. See Thirty Centuries of China's Veterinary Medicine SummarisedNCNA (Lanchow), 06 4, 1963, translated in SCMP, No. 2950, pp. 1314Google Scholar.

107 In Lhasa the Dalai Lama's institute of medicine and astronomy serves as the school for traditional Tibetan medicine which is now hailed as a product of the Tibetan common people. “Study of Traditional Tibetan Medicine in Lhasa,” NCNA May 9, 1962, translated in SCMP, No. 2739, p. 23.

108 In 1960, Felix Greene was told by the Minister of Public Health that there were then 400,000 as compared to 200,000 Western-style doctors (the latter figure presumably referring to both three and five-year medical school graduates). China: The Country Americans Are Not Allowed to Know, p. 325. The age structure of the traditional physicians group may mean that the newly-trained members may do little more than keep the total constant. Elsewhere Li Te-ch'uan has mentioned the figure of 5,000 students in traditional medicine schools (SCMP, No. 2237, p. 20). But there are no recent figures on numbers of apprentices.

109 This is in addition to 330,000 graduates from the three-year medical schools. Medical Workers Trained in China,” NCNA, Peking, 11 23, 1964, translated in SCMP, No. 3345, pp. 1516Google Scholar.

110 One of the recent medical visitors, the noted Canadian neurosurgeon, Dr. Wilder Penfield, found six old-style doctors in a total staff of 134 at the large and modern Sun Yat-sen Hospital in Shanghai. Penfield, , “Oriental Renaissance in Education and Medicine,” Science, Vol. 141, 09 20, 1963, p. 1156CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Doctors from places as diverse as Nanking, Hangchow, Kwangtung and Shanghai reported Chinese medicine departments in their hospitals. Vogel, “Unpublished manuscript.”

111 As in a remote Kueichow Hsien hospital of Kweiting, , “Modern Medical Care Comes to Country Folk,” NCNA, Kweiyang, 04 12, 1962, translated in SCMP, No. 2727, pp. 2021Google Scholar. One difference between the major medical centres and small rural hospitals was that many of the latter were hard pressed to get fully qualified modern physicians, whereas the large hospital had always had a full modern medical staff to which they now added traditional doctors and departments of traditional medicine.

112 Oldham, C. H. G., “Visits to Chinese Communes,” Institute of Current World Affairs, New York, 01 18, 1965, p. 15Google Scholar.

113 Yun-pei, Hsü, “Ten Years of the Chinese Medical Association's Achievements,” Jen-min Pao-chien, No. 10, 10 1959Google Scholar.

114 One of many instances would be the Sixth National Conference on Paediatrics where papers on traditional medicine appeared among the usual Western medical papers. Chinese Medical Journal, Vol. 83, No. 7, 07 1964, pp. 480481Google Scholar.

115 The method is fully described in Hsien-chih, Fang et al. , “The Integration of Modern and Traditional Chinese Medicine in the Treatment of Fractures,” Chinese Medical Journal, Vol. 82, No. 8, 08 1963, pp. 493504Google Scholar, and Vol. 83, No. 7, July 1964, pp. 411–421. This was the only area of traditional medicine which notably impressed Dr. Penfield on his visit to China. Science, September 20, 1963, p. 1156.

116 As in Way, E. Leong, “Pharmacology,” Gould, , ed., Sciences in Communist China, p. 376Google Scholar. “It is almost impossible to refrain from being completely negative about these clinical reports.”

117 Chih-nan, Chang et al. , “Chinese Medicine is Good and Western Medicine is Also Good, But a Combination of the Two is Better,” Kuang-ming Jih-pao, 03 24, 1961, translated in Current Background (CB), No. 662, p. 9Google Scholar.

118 Chia-szu, Huang, “Medical Science Marches Forward Under the Guidance of the Hundred Flowers Policy,” Kuang-ming Jih-pao, 03 16, 1961, translated in CB, No. 662, p. 3Google Scholar.

119 Li Te-ch'uan speech to National Peoples' Congress, April 4,1960, translated in SCMP, No. 2237, p. 20.

120 The phrase “national essence” (“Kuo-tsui”) was frequently used by medical conservatives before 1949 in their struggle with modern Western medicine.

121 There is an important article on the general problem of “creatively inheriting” the national culture. Chiang, Wu, “Wen-hua I-ch'ang te Hsueh-hsi ho P'i-p'an Wen-t'i” (“The Problem of Studying and Criticising the Cultural Legacy”), Hung Ch'i (Red Flag), 03 16, 1961, pp. 1823Google Scholar.

122 Gould, Donald, “Galen in China,” The Lancet, 09 20, 1958, p. 633Google Scholar.

123 Reported in Chinese Medical Journal, March 1963, p. 196, and May 1963, p. 334.

124 Shih-chieh Jih-pao (World Daily) (New York), 05 4, 1962Google Scholar.

125 A good example is the story of an overseas Chinese traditional doctor from Vietnam who has become director of the Amoy hospital for Chinese medicine, Yen-lung, Ch'en, “Practising Medicine in the Great Motherland,” Chung-kuo Hsin-wen, 12 28, 1959Google Scholar.

126 Reported in detail in Wen Hui Pao (Shanghai), 08 15, 1959Google Scholar.

127 See, for example, “Discussing the Question of the Basic Nature of Meridians,” People's Daily, September 29, 1961.

128 As in Hua, Wan, “The Dialectical Thought behind Chinese Medicine's Diagnostics,” Kuang-ming Jih-pao, 05 5, 1961Google Scholar.