This chapter takes up the first postcolonial dualism, the notion that Chinese medicine is only ef... more This chapter takes up the first postcolonial dualism, the notion that Chinese medicine is only efficacious for chronic diseases, and Western medicine the superior system for acute illnesses. In contrast to this popular prejudice, this chapter demonstrates through extensive interviews with senior doctors that studied medicine during the Republican period (1911–1945) that doctors of Chinese medicine often specialized in the treatment of acute, infectious diseases in the pre-Communist era. This chapter analyses the implications of these discoveries for re-thinking the history of medicine in 20th-century China. It also argues that the new powers of the centralized Communist state created the social and political conditions of the 1950s that prevented doctors of Chinese medicine from treating acute illnesses. The purifying tendencies of this dualism have pushed doctors of Chinese medicine to exclusively treat chronic diseases or use hybrid therapies to resolve diseases with complex temporal dimensions.
This chapter takes up the first postcolonial dualism, the notion that Chinese medicine is only ef... more This chapter takes up the first postcolonial dualism, the notion that Chinese medicine is only efficacious for chronic diseases, and Western medicine the superior system for acute illnesses. In contrast to this popular prejudice, this chapter demonstrates through extensive interviews with senior doctors that studied medicine during the Republican period (1911–1945) that doctors of Chinese medicine often specialized in the treatment of acute, infectious diseases in the pre-Communist era. This chapter analyses the implications of these discoveries for re-thinking the history of medicine in 20th-century China. It also argues that the new powers of the centralized Communist state created the social and political conditions of the 1950s that prevented doctors of Chinese medicine from treating acute illnesses. The purifying tendencies of this dualism have pushed doctors of Chinese medicine to exclusively treat chronic diseases or use hybrid therapies to resolve diseases with complex tempo...
This chapter takes up the first postcolonial dualism, the notion that Chinese medicine is only ef... more This chapter takes up the first postcolonial dualism, the notion that Chinese medicine is only efficacious for chronic diseases, and Western medicine the superior system for acute illnesses. In contrast to this popular prejudice, this chapter demonstrates through extensive interviews with senior doctors that studied medicine during the Republican period (1911–1945) that doctors of Chinese medicine often specialized in the treatment of acute, infectious diseases in the pre-Communist era. This chapter analyses the implications of these discoveries for re-thinking the history of medicine in 20th-century China. It also argues that the new powers of the centralized Communist state created the social and political conditions of the 1950s that prevented doctors of Chinese medicine from treating acute illnesses. The purifying tendencies of this dualism have pushed doctors of Chinese medicine to exclusively treat chronic diseases or use hybrid therapies to resolve diseases with complex temporal dimensions.
This chapter takes up the first postcolonial dualism, the notion that Chinese medicine is only ef... more This chapter takes up the first postcolonial dualism, the notion that Chinese medicine is only efficacious for chronic diseases, and Western medicine the superior system for acute illnesses. In contrast to this popular prejudice, this chapter demonstrates through extensive interviews with senior doctors that studied medicine during the Republican period (1911–1945) that doctors of Chinese medicine often specialized in the treatment of acute, infectious diseases in the pre-Communist era. This chapter analyses the implications of these discoveries for re-thinking the history of medicine in 20th-century China. It also argues that the new powers of the centralized Communist state created the social and political conditions of the 1950s that prevented doctors of Chinese medicine from treating acute illnesses. The purifying tendencies of this dualism have pushed doctors of Chinese medicine to exclusively treat chronic diseases or use hybrid therapies to resolve diseases with complex tempo...
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