Kim Taylor - Chinese Medicine in Early Communist China, 1945-63: A Medicine of Revolution (Needham Research Institute)

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Chinese Medicine in Early Communist China, 194563

Chinese Medicine in Early Communist China describes the transformation of Chinese medicine from a marginal, sidelined medical practice of the early twentieth century, to an essential and high profile part of the national health care system under the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

The analysis begins with the Civil War of 19459, when the CCP was entrenched in rural Yanan and began to enlist the support of the local peasant population, including practitioners of Chinese medicine, to strengthen its campaign. Eighteen years later, this fragmented and diverse tradition of medicine had been reworked into a standardized theoretical system with a nationwide network of institutions in place dedicated to its practice, research and study. Taylor explains that Chinese medicine achieved the scale of promotion it did precisely because it fitted in, sometimes in a quite fortuitous fashion, with the ideals of the Communist Revolution. During these fraught and unsettled times, political and economic considerations outweighed the therapeutic importance of the medicine. In deconstructing events of this period, this study throws new light on a series of key moments previously regarded as proof of Chairman Mao Zedongs unwavering support for Chinese medicine. These include the formation of the term Traditional Chinese Medicine (or TCM), the exact circumstances of Mao Zedongs declaration that Chinese medicine is a great treasure-house! and the unlikely beginnings of the formation of a basic theory of TCM.

Kim Taylor is an affiliated scholar of the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge. Her research interests include the history of disease, medicine and the imperial world and nineteenth- and twentieth-century Chinese medicine.

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Needham Research Institute Series

Series Editor: Christopher Cullen

Joseph Needhams Science and Civilisation series began publication in the 1950s. At first, it was seen as a piece of brilliant but isolated pioneering. However, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, it is clear that Needhams work has succeeded in creating a vibrant new intellectual field in the West. The books in this series cover topics relating broadly to the practice of science, technology and medicine in East Asia, including China, Japan, Korea and Vietnam. The emphasis is on traditional forms of knowledge and practice, but without excluding modern studies which connect the topics with their historical and cultural context.

Celestial Lancets

A history and rationale of acupuncture and moxa

Lu Gwei-Djen and Joseph Needham With a new introduction by Vivienne Lo

A Chinese Physician

Wang Ji and the Stone Mountain Medical Case histories

Joanna Grant

Chinese Mathematical Astrology

Reaching out to the stars

Ho Peng Yoke

Medieval Chinese Medicine

The Dunhuang medical manuscripts

Vivienne Lo and Christopher Cullen

Chinese Medicine in Early Communist China, 194563

A medicine of revolution

Kim Taylor

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A medicine of revolution

Kim Taylor

LONDON AND NEW YORK

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First published 2005 by RoutledgeCurzon
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by RoutledgeCurzon
270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016

RoutledgeCurzon is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.

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2005 Kim Taylor

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ISBN 0-203-31127-2 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-415-34512-X (Print Edition)

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