Analysis Of The Rat Plague Of Northeast China And The Sanitary And Antiepidemic Condition Of Yanbian In The Early20th Century

In1910, a large scale rat plague broke out in Northeast China. This plague began from Manzhouli in Heilongjiang Province, and spread to Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Shandong, and some other areas. It was such a massive epidemic disease that it extended as far as2,700kilometers, lasted for about eight months and killed over60,000infestors. The great movement of population and the poor sanitary condition at that time had much to do with this plague. Because of the special political setting of this area, the plague issue was more than a medical and health issue.This plague erupted during the last period of the Qing Dynasty, when its reign was almost at the end. In spite of the low medical standards and the national intervention which China had to cope with, the Qing Dynasty took some positive actions. By using some scientific anti-epidemic approaches, the Qing Dynasty managed to get under control the spread of this plague, and all the world spoke highly of the efforts that the Qing government and the local Northeast local government had made. The eruption of this plague also had a great affect on the Sino-Russian relations and the Sino-Japanese relations. In order to defend its sovereignty in Northeast China, the Qing Dynasty held a national plague meeting in Mukden.Though Yanbian located in the border areas, and its medical facilities were also relatively out-dated, with the development of this area and the growth of its population, the medical and health institution and the administrative department completed step by step. After the plague spreading to Yanbian, the local government managed to take some positive anti-epidemic measures to control its further spread. With the joint efforts of the local government and the common people, the plague was gradually under control and faded away at last. But the high death rate and the measures taken during the outbreak of the plague brought about to some extend some bad effects on the Yanbian people’s mentality.Yanbian, which located in the core zone of the Northeast Asia, had an important strategic position. After Russo-Japanese War, Japan intensified its invasion of the Yanbian area. To invade and occupy this area, Japan applied its colonial medical strategy to Yanbian. Depending on its advanced medical technology and enormous economic potentiality, the Japanese consulate general in Yanbian vied with Yanbian local government for the control over medical treatment and public health. Yanbian local government made an utmost effort to resist the invasion from Japan, but at last was unable to cope because of its financial difficulty. Meanwhile, the private hospitals and missionary hospitals kept on developing.