Article ID: CBB568414717

Invulnerable Facts: Infant Mortality and Development in Nationalist Gansu (2020)

unapi

This article examines responses to high rates of infant mortality in China’s northwestern province of Gansu during the Nationalist decades (1927–1949). Based on public health reports for both government and popular audiences, this article argues that the problem of Gansu’s especially high infant mortality rate was constructed to serve a particular political and economic agenda, drawing heavily not only from fascist ideals but also the logic of foreign philanthropists and Nationalist technocrats. Once established, the facts of this problem and its cause remained stubbornly invulnerable to new evidence. The article makes two primary contributions. First, it brings to light actors and institutions largely absent in existing scholarship on medicine and public health in Republican China. Second, it cautions against treating infant mortality rates referenced in the historical record as dispassionate measures of life and death. Rather, these purported facts affirm the value ascribed to reproductive health and its relevance for particular political aims.

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Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB568414717/

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Authors & Contributors
Andrews, Bridie J.
Bullock, Mary Brown
Chen, Ling
Di, Lu
Elman, Benjamin A.
Fan, Ka-wai
Journals
East Asian Science, Technology and Society: An International Journal
Chinese Journal for the History of Science and Technology
Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences
Osiris: A Research Journal Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences
Science, Technology, and Human Values
Social History of Medicine
Publishers
Indiana University Press
Publications de l'Université de Provence
Rutgers University Press
Concepts
Public health
Medicine
Maternal health services
Osteopathic medicine
Obstetrics and pregnancy
East Asia, civilization and culture
Time Periods
20th century
20th century, early
19th century
18th century
21st century
Places
China
Republic of China (1912-1949)
Taiwan
Italy
United States
Institutions
Henry Lester Institute of Medical Research
Chongqing No. 3 Children's Home
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