A Study on the Awareness of Chinese Medicine by Medical Missionaries: Focused on The China Medical Missionary Journal (1887--1932) (2015)
Jo, J. (Author)
Korean Journal of Medical History
Volume: 24, no. 1
Issue: 1
Pages: 163-194
Edition Details: [Translated title.] In Korean.
Language: Korean
Protestant medical missionaries, who started entering China during the beginning of the 19th century, set the goal as propagating Western medicine to the Chinese while spreading the Christian gospel. Back in those days, China formed deep relations with their own ideology and culture and depended on Chinese medicine that caused major influence on their lives instead of just treatment behaviors. Accordingly, it is natural to see information about Chinese medicine in documents that were left behind. Yet, there are not many studies which dealt with the awareness of Chinese medicine by medical missionaries, and most were focused on the criticism imposed by medical missionaries regarding Chinese medicine. Thus, there are also claims amongst recent studies which impose how the medical missionaries moved from overlooking and criticizing Chinese medicine to gaining a "sympathetic viewpoint" to a certain degree. Still, when the documents left behind by medical missionaries is observed, there are many aspects which support how the awareness of Chinese medicine in medical missionaries has not changed significantly. In addition, medical missionaries actively used medicine like traditional Chinese drugs if the treatment effect was well known. Yet, they barely gave any interest to the five elements, which are the basics of traditional Chinese drugs prescription. In other words, medical missionaries only selected elements of Chinese medicine that were helpful to them just like how the Chinese were choosing what they needed from Western knowledge. The need to understand Chinese medicine was growing according to the flow of times. For instance, some medical missionaries admitted the treatment effect of acupuncture in contrast to claiming it as non-scientific in the past. Such changes were also related to how focused medical missionaries were on medical activities. The first medical missionaries emphasized the non-scientific aspect of Chinese medicine to verify the legitimacy of medical mission. Then, medical missionaries gradually exerted more efforts on medical treatment than direct mission activities so the need of Chinese medicine became greater. This was because Chinese relied on Chinese medicine the most and even used Chinese medicine terms that they knew to explain their conditions while getting treatment from doctors who learned Western medicine. Additionally, medicine missionaries witnessed patients getting better after receiving treatment so they could not completely overlook Chinese medicine. However, medical missionaries strongly believed in the superiority of Western medicine and considered that China certainly needed Western medicine from a scientific perspective. Chinese doctors who were close to medical missionaries and learned about Western medicine believed in Western medicine and thought that Chinese medicine only held historical value besides some fields like Chinese traditional drugs.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Article
Harrison, Henrietta;
(2012)
Rethinking Missionaries and Medicine in China: The Miracles of Assunta Pallotta, 1905--2005
(/isis/citation/CBB001202139/)
Article
Zito, Angela;
(2007)
Secularizing the Pain of Footbinding in China: Missionary and Medical Stagings of the Universal Body
(/isis/citation/CBB001030740/)
Article
Fu, Louis;
(2013)
The Protestant Medical Missions to China: Dr Thomas Richardson Colledge (1796--1879) and the Founding of the Macao Ophthalmic Hospital
(/isis/citation/CBB001421963/)
Article
Fu, Louis;
(2013)
The Protestant Medical Missions to China: The Introduction of Western Medicine with Vaccination
(/isis/citation/CBB001421964/)
Book
Shemo, Connie Anne;
(2011)
The Chinese Medical Ministries of Kang Cheng and Shi Meiyu, 1872--1937: On A Cross-Cultural Frontier of Gender, Race, and Nation
(/isis/citation/CBB001212452/)
Thesis
Kang, Jong Hyuk David;
(2013)
Missionaries, Women, and Health Care: History of Nursing in Colonial Hong Kong (1887--1942)
(/isis/citation/CBB001567451/)
Article
Ji-Hye Shin;
(2021)
“Insanity Is the Price of Modern Civilization”: The Discourse of Civilization and the Asian Insane in Modern America
(/isis/citation/CBB937450363/)
Chapter
Joachim Kurtz;
(2010)
Messenger of the Sacred Heart: Li Wenyu (1840–1911), and the Jesuit Periodical Press in Late Qing Shanghai
(/isis/citation/CBB711159352/)
Article
Chang, Rhonda;
(2014)
Making Theoretical Principles for New Chinese Medicine
(/isis/citation/CBB001421869/)
Thesis
Shawn Xiaoyan-Lu Foster;
(2019)
Transferring Western Medical Professional Institutions to China – Riding with Missions and Dismissing Native Medicine, 1807-1937: Guangzhou, Shanghai, and Changsha
(/isis/citation/CBB087183145/)
Article
Zhen, Cheng;
(2006)
American Missionaries and the Founding of Nursing in China (1880--1930)
(/isis/citation/CBB001020789/)
Book
Renshaw, Michelle;
(2005)
Accommodating the Chinese: The American Hospital in China, 1880--1920
(/isis/citation/CBB000600049/)
Article
Sihn, Kyu-hwan;
(2012)
The Anatomical Revolution and the Transition of Anatomical Conception in Late Imperial China
(/isis/citation/CBB001210622/)
Book
Glover, Denise M.;
Harrell, Stevan;
McKhann, Charles F.;
Swain, Margaret Byrne;
(2011)
Explorers and Scientists in China's Borderlands, 1880--1950
(/isis/citation/CBB001214669/)
Article
Mathias Vigouroux;
(2017)
The surgeon’s acupuncturist : Philipp Franz von Siebold’s encounter with Ishizaka Sōtetsu and nineteenth century Japanese acupuncture
(/isis/citation/CBB423518156/)
Thesis
Lan Angela Li;
(2016)
Intimate Cartographies: Body Maps and the Epistemic Encounter in China and Britain, 1893-1985
(/isis/citation/CBB483372894/)
Book
Andreas Feldtkeller;
Uta Zeuge-Buberl;
(2018)
Networks of Knowledge: Epistemic Entanglement Initiated by American Protestant Missionary Presence in Nineteenth-century Syria
(/isis/citation/CBB793982994/)
Article
Candelise, Lucia;
(2010)
George Soulié de Morant
(/isis/citation/CBB001252109/)
Thesis
Shing-ting Lin;
(2015)
The Female Hand: The Making of Western Medicine for Women in China, 1880s–1920s
(/isis/citation/CBB532007965/)
Thesis
Perelman, Elisheva Avital;
(2011)
The Exponent of Breath: The Role of Foreign Evangelical Organizations in Combating Japan's Tuberculosis Epidemic of the Early 20th Century
(/isis/citation/CBB001562827/)
Be the first to comment!