The Making of Modern Chinese Medicine, 1850–1960 by Bridie Andrews (review)

Now available in paperback, Bridie Andrews' important work on medicine in modern China is a must-read for all scholars interested in the history of medicine or Chinese science, and more importantly in my opinion, this discerning work has the potential of revising the narrative of modernity in Chinese history. First published by UBC Press in hardcover in 2014, this book builds upon the author's early work and also incorporates new materials that have never been systematically examined in this fashion. To put it simply, the book's main agenda is to question the "purified" dichotomy between Western-imported biomedicine and Traditional Chinese Medicine by arguing that the production of both categories involved long, complex processes of modernization by a host of different actors. Whereas the clash of Western versus Traditional Chinese medicine reached its climax in the Chinese national political theater only in the late 1920s, Andrews suggests that the lead-up to this moment was by no means pre-determined by national or ethnic origins of the actors.¹ In no stage of this process did clinical efficacy become the driving force in favor of one side or another. Drawing from Peter Burke's notion of Cultural Hybridity and Bruno Latour's critique of the never-ending quest for modernity, Andrews presents a convincing case on how medicine came to epitomize different visions of modernity and how as a result of this purification effort the persistent pair of Western versus Chinese medicine was co-produced and reinforced certain images of each other.

The book has seven chapters that follow the first introductory chapter and ends with a thoughtful conclusion co-authored with Andrews's colleague David L. Schwarzkopf. Chapter 2 sets up the stage by surveying the bewildering variety of healing practices in nineteenth-century China, serving as a "substrate" (a chemical metaphor that Andrews adopted consistently throughout the book) that was to be acted upon by various new "forces" at play. Chapters 3–5 examine three kinds of such forces, that is, missionary zeal (from early nineteenth century onward), Japanese influence (peaked at turn-of-the-century), and impetus for state building (early decades of the twentieth century). It will become apparent to the reader that one can, in fact, read this story of medicine as a microcosm of China's trajectory from the Late Qing to Early Republican period–therefore, suitable for use as a textbook for students interested in medicine and global health without much background in Chinese history. Chapters 6–8 then use individual careers ("medical lives"), institutions, and theories/practices (the writing of case histories, and reformed acupuncture) to show concrete results that came out of the brewing mixture (to use another chemical metaphor) of larger forces. Especially worth noting is her extensive use of medical literature published in the early twentieth century. Long before the war of Western versus Chinese medicine reached national political prominence, the battle already began in newspapers, missionary and medical journals in both English and Chinese, and the publishing sector (including many impressive book projects that entailed huge amount of capital and effort).

The concluding chapter first provides an epilogue that extends the chronological narrative to the 1960s, and then wraps up the book by proposing how "translation" and "syncretism" both fall short in explaining what was described in this book (p. 215). The new metaphor that Andrews offered instead is one of mutual reflection: Western medicine in its modern phase cannot hold together as a coherent whole without its "alternative," "traditional" other. Similarly, Traditional Chinese Medicine in its modern reincarnation reflects the image of Western medicine and remade itself to accommodate the latter, yet remaining proudly distinct. The reference to Barry Buzan's notion of selective Westernization (p. 214) is illuminating, and goes beyond a general argument for cultural hybridity as a given condition. The making of "modern Chinese medicine" is, therefore, first about mixture and transformation, then leading...