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Chapter 20 Chinese Traditional Aetiology and Methods of Cure in Hong Kong (1976)* The position of Chinese medicine in Hong Kong and the problems of official recognition are complex. When in 1841 a certain Captain Elliott negotiated the preliminaries for a Sino-British treaty for the cession of Hong Kong island, one of his proclamations stated that the Chinese were “secured in the free exercise of their religious rites, ceremonies, and social interests….” Many local inhabitants regard this statement as meaning that Chinese customs insofar as they are not harmful or contrary to natural justice should be protected: that no law which would interfere with their integrity should be applied to them. By and large this has also been the official attitude. But what is custom in the traditional medical profession? And what is or is not harmful in traditional methods of cure? As society changes, so does custom: new ways of training traditional doctors exist, as we will see, and many persons now practicing medicine have no medical training.1 * First published in Asian Medical Systems: A Comparative Study, edited by Charles Leslie, pp. 243–65. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976. Reprinted by permission of University of California Press. 1 The version of the paper for the Burg Wartenstein Symposium was based entirely on data collected in 1969. For this published version, the statistical information has been updated and augmented, and material from specialists in traditional medicine and other sources replaces or expands some of the sections. This new material was acquired late in 1971. The individual sources are indicated as they appear, but the overall source is a two-year project on which I am currently engaged at the Centre of Asian Studies which is specifically concerned with the operation of dual systems of medicine — modern and traditional — in the Colony. The study began in September 1971 and the data is, therefore, very preliminary. But since it will be some time before a report on the study can be written, it seemed worthwhile to include it here. The inclusion of the new material does not shift the original emphasis of the paper, which is on differentiation within the traditional system itself, but enables more attention to be given to organization and structural features of the traditional system than was possible in the earlier paper. 524 Chapter 20 It is difficult to say among contemporary practitioners who should be officially recognized as a traditional doctor, and sometimes even what constitutes a customary cure. Eventually such problems may have to be faced, but at present most of the controls which are exercised over traditional medicine have emerged as the indirect effect of pharmaceutical laws, food hygiene regulations, or other measures aiming to prevent hardships or dangers to the public. Thus, no traditional doctor is required to register, except as owner of a business, but no doctor without legally valid modern medical training may use certain listed poisons or treat any eye diseases. Largely as a result of this situation, there is not only no official information readily available to the public on Chinese medicine, but little in government files, either, except as it arises through encounters with the law or in connection with the registration of medical associations. No specific research concerned with the sociology of Chinese medicine in Hong Kong had been undertaken before 1971. A number of official sources indicate that modern medicine is a popular profession. The University of Hong Kong had a medical faculty with almost 700 students in 1971. Early in that year, more than 2,000 doctors were on the medical register (although some may not be active in the Colony), with more than 600 government medical officers. There were also more than 400 unregistrable doctors, mostly working in government services and exempted from registration, or in charity clinics themselves having exempted status. There were nearly 200 registered and government pharmacists. In addition, an unknown number of unregistrable doctors, occasionally without any qualifications from anywhere, practice illegally in the Colony under the guise of “Chinese practitioners” or “herbalists”. How popular does the traditional profession appear to be? “Schools” operate in Hong Kong as new kinds of institutions for training students of traditional medicine; located for the most part in small apartment buildings, their number is probably increasing. At least 16 associations of traditional doctors exist, 4 of which appear to be very active and alert to any new government measure that might have implications for traditional practice. Looking at the membership lists of...

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