Health Policy and Disease in Colonial and Postcolonial Hong Kong, 18412003
Besides looking at major outbreaks of diseases and how they were coped with diseases such as malaria, smallpox, tuberculosis, plague, venereal disease, avian flu, and SARS this book also examines how the successive government regimes in Hong Kong took action to prevent diseases and control potential threats to health. It shows how policies impacted the various Chinese and non-Chinese groups, and how policies were often formulated as a result of negotiations between these different groups. By considering developments over a long historical period, the book contrasts the different approaches in the periods of colonial rule, Japanese occupation, postwar reconstruction, transition to decolonization, and Hong Kong as Special Administrative Region within the Peoples Republic of China.
Ka-che Yip is a Professor Emeritus of the University of Maryland Baltimore County, USA.
Yuen-sang Leung is Professor of History, Dean of Arts and Director of the Institute of Chinese Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, China.
Man-kong Wong is Director of the China Studies Programme and Associate Professor of History at Hong Kong Baptist University, China.
Routledge Studies in the Modern History of Asia
For a full list of titles in this series, please visit www.routledge.com.
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118. Health Policy and Disease in Colonial and Post-Colonial Hong Kong, 18412003
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119. Britains Imperial Retreat from China, 19001931
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120. Constitution Making in Asia
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Health Policy and Disease in Colonial and Postcolonial Hong Kong, 18412003
Ka-che Yip, Yuen-sang Leung and Man-kong Wong
First published 2016
by Routledge
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2016 Ka-che Yip, Yuen-sang Leung and Man-kong Wong
The right of Ka-che Yip, Yuen-sang Leung and Man-kong Wong to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Yip, Ka-che, 1944- author. | Liang, Yuansheng, author. | Huang, Wenjiang, author.
Title: Health policy and disease in colonial and Post-colonial Hong Kong, 1841-2003 / by Ka-che Yip, Philip Yuen-sang Leung, and Timothy Man-Kong Wong.
Description: Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2016. | Series: Routledge studies in the modern history of Asia ; 118 | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015049593 | ISBN 9781138943575 (hbk) |
ISBN 9781317372967 (ebk)
Subjects: LCSH: Medical policyChinaHong KongHistory. | Medical careChinaHong KongHistory. | EpidemiologyChinaHong KongHistory.
Classification: LCC RA395.C53 Y58 2016 | DDC 362.1095125dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015049593
ISBN: 978-1-138-94357-5 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-67237-3 (ebk)
Contents
This study originated as a research project on the history of diseases and epidemics in Hong Kong which was supported by the Research Grant Council, Hong Kong (GRF Project Reference No. 248811). We are most grateful for the Councils financial support that made it possible for us to collect the necessary archival materials and receive the research assistance needed to complete the project. We are very much indebted to the late Dr. Lee Shiu-Hung, first director of the Hong Kong Department of Health, and subsequently professor and chair of the Department of Community and Family Medicine as well as the founding director of the School of Public Health at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, for his inspiration, encouragement, and friendship.
Throughout the preparation of this volume, we have benefitted from the research assistance of many associates, especially Dr. Law Yuen Han, whose tireless efforts are deeply appreciated. We have also received generous support from our respective home institutions: The University of Maryland Baltimore County, USA, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Hong Kong Baptist University. And we have received constructive criticisms from many friends and colleagues who have read sections of our work or papers presented at scholarly meetings. To all of them, our sincerest gratitude.
We would like to acknowledge the assistance of Mr. Chun-wai Li in preparing the index for this book. We also thank the Department of Health, the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, for its permission to use the photo in the book cover.
Our special thanks to Peter Sowden at Routledge, whose interest and encouragement were invaluable throughout the process of the preparation of this book. We also thank his editorial staff for their guidance and help in the production of this volume. Finally, we are grateful to the anonymous readers who have given us useful suggestions.
Objectives of the study
This book examines some of the most prevalent diseases whose historical developments were closely intertwined with the history of Hong Kong from the establishment of the British colony in 1841 to the outbreak of the SARS epidemic in 2003, six years after it was returned to China. This time span includes the pre-World War II period of colonial rule, the Japanese occupation, the postwar era of reconstruction, the transition to decolonization from the 1980s to 1997, and the postcolonial period when Hong Kong became a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China. This temporal coverage allows us to compare and evaluate developments in each period, from colonial to postcolonial, and during the evolution of the city from a colonial entrepot to a global financial center an approach that will reveal the changes and continuities in disease-control policies as well as institutional adjustments and innovations.
