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

Western modernity as the single normative modernity has been the paradigm and criterion used to analyze and measure the rise of Chinese medicine in changing sociopolitical contexts. Within this narrative, the binary dichotomy between "Western" and "Chinese" medicine has been problematic. Bridie Andrews's The Making of Modern Chinese Medicine aims to break this dichotomy by examining the motives driving the active assimilation of Western medicine and the reasons for the rise of a new Chinese medicine. By analyzing the history of modern Chinese medicine, Andrews intends to shed light on the history of Western influences in non-Western societies and on the ways that science is perceived and performed as a marker of modernity.

The book investigates the significant issues in modern Chinese medicine in chronological order. Chapters 2 and 3 mainly focus on medical practices up to the early twentieth century. The diverse spectrum of medical practice shows the coexistence of "modern" and "traditional" approaches to medicine and highlights the role of medical pluralism in the modernization process. From chapter 4 to chapter 8, the book analyzes how sociopolitical changes impacted Chinese medicine, facilitated responses to shifts in medical culture by early Chinese medical communities, the state, reformers, and medical professions, and contributed to the rise of modern Chinese medicine. The Japanese medical reform made a great impact on China's medical community and motivated the modern Chinese state to assume responsibility for public health care. Modern social and medical reformers integrated medicine into their struggles for sociopolitical change and the strengthening of Chinese medicine as an indigenous medicine. The rise of professional associations and the establishment of the National Quarantine Service became key events in the institutionalization of Western medicine in China, while the Chinese medical community underwent more significant institutionalization and professionalization. Western medicine also had a significant impact on modern Chinese medicine through the adoption of Western-style case histories and the relocation of acupuncture points in the new acupuncture.

This book makes significant contributions to theoretical understandings of the history of Chinese medicine in modern China. Rather than upholding the dichotomy between Chinese and Western medicine, Andrews argues that the process was one of dynamic interactions and mutual impacts. She proposes a set of concepts to describe these effects: "translation" (or "appropriation") and "syncretism." The former involved "appropriat[ing] or translat[ing] elements of culture differently" and included missionary, European, and Japanese medical models for Chinese medicine. The latter implied a two-way exchange affecting both Western and Chinese medical practices, such as the West's curiosity regarding Chinese materia medica and Chinese practitioners' growing interest in Western medical practices and institutions [End Page E-17] (214). Andrews further suggests that "Chinese and Western medicines are two mirrors facing each other at a short distance. Each mirror holds the image not only of the other but also of the other's view of itself (216)."

The book also greatly advances empirical understandings of three key issues in the history of medicine in China. First, it vividly reveals aspects of Western medical practice prior to its triumph and aggressiveness in the twentieth century that have been neglected up to this point. As the book shows, there were significant similarities between these and Chinese medicine, notably in the drug combinations used by both. Meanwhile, Western medical missionaries applied the strategy of "accommodation" to downplay the difference between their approach and that of Chinese medicine, such as looking for local substitutes for herbal medicines, comparing market prices, and adopting indigenous architectural styles for hospitals.

Second, Andrews profoundly analyzes an important question about the rise of medical professionals with different training backgrounds and political inclinations and the emergence of different professional societies and associations. There were three medical associations by the establishment of the Nanjing Nationalist government in 1928: the China Medical Missionary Association (CMMA; also known as the China Medical Association...