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Medical History Jul 2018During the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966-76), Chairman Mao fundamentally reformed medicine so that rural people received medical care. His new medical model has been...
During the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966-76), Chairman Mao fundamentally reformed medicine so that rural people received medical care. His new medical model has been variously characterised as: revolutionary Maoist medicine, a revitalised form of Chinese medicine; and the final conquest by Western medicine. This paper finds that instead of Mao's vision of a new 'revolutionary medicine', there was a new medical synthesis that drew from the Maoist ideal and Western and Chinese traditions, but fundamentally differed from all of them. Maoist medicine's ultimate aim was doctors as peasant carers. However, rural people and local governments valued treatment expertise, causing divergence from this ideal. As a result, Western and elite Chinese medical doctors sent to the countryside for rehabilitation were preferable to barefoot doctors and received rural support. Initially Western-trained physicians belittled elite Chinese doctors, and both looked down on barefoot doctors and indigenous herbalists and acupuncturists. However, the levelling effect of terrible rural conditions made these diverse conceptions of the doctor closer during the Cultural Revolution. Thus, urban doctors and rural medical practitioners developed a symbiotic relationship: barefoot doctors provided political protection and local knowledge for urban doctors; urban doctors' provided expertise and a medical apprenticeship for barefoot doctors; and both counted on the local medical knowledge of indigenous healers. This fragile conceptual nexus had fallen apart by the end of the Maoist era (1976), but the evidence of new medical syntheses shows the diverse range of alliances that become possible under the rubric of 'revolutionary medicine'.
Topics: China; Cultural Characteristics; History, 20th Century; Humans; Physicians
PubMed: 29886861
DOI: 10.1017/mdh.2018.23 -
Medical History Jan 2015This article outlines the history of the commerce in medicinal plants and plant-based remedies from the Spanish American territories in the eighteenth century. It maps...
This article outlines the history of the commerce in medicinal plants and plant-based remedies from the Spanish American territories in the eighteenth century. It maps the routes used to transport the plants from Spanish America to Europe and, along the arteries of European commerce, colonialism and proselytism, into societies across the Americas, Asia and Africa. Inquiring into the causes of the global 'spread' of American remedies, it argues that medicinal plants like ipecacuanha, guaiacum, sarsaparilla, jalap root and cinchona moved with relative ease into Parisian medicine chests, Moroccan court pharmacies and Manila dispensaries alike, because of their 'exotic' charisma, the force of centuries-old medical habits, and the increasingly measurable effectiveness of many of these plants by the late eighteenth century. Ultimately and primarily, however, it was because the disease environments of these widely separated places, their medical systems and materia medica had long become entangled by the eighteenth century.
Topics: Colonialism; Commerce; History, 18th Century; History, 19th Century; Humans; Pharmaceutical Preparations; Phytotherapy; Plants, Medicinal; South America
PubMed: 25498437
DOI: 10.1017/mdh.2014.70 -
Medical History Apr 2017Within the colonial setting of the Belgian Congo, the process of cutting the body, whether living or dead, lent itself to conflation with cannibalism and other fantastic...
Within the colonial setting of the Belgian Congo, the process of cutting the body, whether living or dead, lent itself to conflation with cannibalism and other fantastic consumption stories by both Congolese and Belgian observers. In part this was due to the instability of the meaning of the human body and the human corpse in the colonial setting. This essay maps out different views of the cadaver and personhood through medical technologies of opening the body in the Belgian Congo. The attempt to impose a specific reading of the human body on the Congolese populations through anatomy and related Western medical disciplines was unsuccessful. Ultimately, practices such as surgery and autopsy were reinterpreted and reshaped in the colonial context, as were the definitions of social and medical death. By examining the conflicts that arose around medical technologies of cutting human flesh, this essay traces multiple parallel narratives on acceptable use and representation of the human body (Congolese or Belgian) beyond its medical assignation.
Topics: Autopsy; Belgium; Cannibalism; Colonialism; Democratic Republic of the Congo; General Surgery; History, 20th Century; Humans
PubMed: 28260570
DOI: 10.1017/mdh.2017.5 -
British Journal of Anaesthesia Apr 2016
Topics: Anesthesiology; History, 20th Century; History, 21st Century; Periodicals as Topic; Schools, Medical; United Kingdom
PubMed: 26994224
DOI: 10.1093/bja/aew051 -
Medical History Oct 2023The paper examines the introduction of trained female nurses for the British army men in colonial India between 1888 and 1920. It discusses the genesis of the Indian...
The paper examines the introduction of trained female nurses for the British army men in colonial India between 1888 and 1920. It discusses the genesis of the Indian Nursing Service (INS), including the background and negotiations leading up to its formation, terms of employment, duties and working conditions of the nursing sisters. The memoir of Catharine Grace Loch, who served as the first Chief Lady Superintendent of the service is used extensively to trace the early experiences and challenges of the nursing sisters. The paper primarily argues that the INS being a new service, the colonial government maintained tight control over its functioning, and extreme conservatism in spending, thus retarding the growth of professional army nursing in India. Secondly, in examining the relations between the sisters and the (male) nursing orderlies, sub-medical and medical officers, the paper argues that the inadequate delineation of the nursing sisters' position in the military medical hierarchy was an important reason for the undermining of their expertise and status. Thirdly, the paper contends that as an all-women service, nursing constituted an important avenue of female agency within the patriarchal colonial establishment, which subjected the sisters to scrutiny both professionally and socially. The paper analyses the resultant conditions and regulations imposed on the sisters - most of them determined by gender and class notions. Finally, the paper discusses the gradual establishment and recognition of the service as an important cornerstone for the health of the army, while highlighting the shortcomings that yet persisted up until 1920.
Topics: Humans; Male; Female; Military Personnel; India; Gender Identity
PubMed: 37828845
DOI: 10.1017/mdh.2023.31 -
GMS Journal For Medical Education 2017"History, Theory, Ethics of Medicine" (German: "Geschichte, Theorie, Ethik der Medizin", abbreviation: GTE) forms part of the obligatory curriculum for medical students...
"History, Theory, Ethics of Medicine" (German: "Geschichte, Theorie, Ethik der Medizin", abbreviation: GTE) forms part of the obligatory curriculum for medical students in Germany since the winter semester 2003/2004. This paper presents the results of a national survey on the contents, methods and framework of GTE teaching. Semi-structured questionnaire dispatched in July 2014 to 38 institutions responsible for GTE teaching. Descriptive analysis of quantitative data and content analysis of free-text answers. It was possible to collect data from 29 institutes responsible for GTE teaching (response: 76%). There is at least one professorial chair for GTE in 19 faculties; two professorial chairs or professorships remained vacant at the time of the survey. The number of students taught per academic year ranges from <100 to >350. Teaching in GTE comprises an average of 2.18 hours per week per semester (min: 1, max: 6). Teaching in GTE is proportionally distributed according to an arithmetic average as follows: history: 35.4%, theory 14.7% and ethics 49.9%. Written learning objectives were formulated for GTE in 24 faculties. The preferred themes of teaching in history, theory or ethics which according to respondents should be taught comprise a broad spectrum and vary. Teaching in ethics (79 from a max. of 81 possible points) is, when compared to history (61/81) and theory (53/81), attributed the most significance for the training of medical doctors. 10 years after the introduction of GTE the number of students and the personnel resources available at the institutions vary considerably. In light of the differences regarding the content elicited in this study the pros and cons of heterogeneity in GTE should be discussed.
Topics: Curriculum; Education, Medical; Ethics, Medical; Faculty, Medical; Germany; History, 21st Century; Humans; Surveys and Questionnaires
PubMed: 28584871
DOI: 10.3205/zma001100 -
The Israel Medical Association Journal... Mar 2019
Topics: Anniversaries and Special Events; History, 20th Century; History, 21st Century; Humans; Israel; Periodicals as Topic; Societies, Medical
PubMed: 30905094
DOI: No ID Found -
Lakartidningen
Review
Topics: Biomedical Research; Computers; Humans; Interviews as Topic; Medical History Taking; Quality of Health Care; Self Report; Software
PubMed: 25699335
DOI: No ID Found -
Medical History Jan 2017
Topics: Datasets as Topic; History of Medicine
PubMed: 27998329
DOI: 10.1017/mdh.2016.104 -
American Family Physician Apr 2020
Topics: Anniversaries and Special Events; Family Practice; History, 20th Century; History, 21st Century; Humans; Periodicals as Topic; Physicians, Family; Publishing; Societies, Medical; United States
PubMed: 32227820
DOI: No ID Found