On The Abolishment And Preservation Of Modern Chinese Medicine

Concentrated on the controversy of the abolishing Chinese medicine case during the Republican China under the background of Chinese social and cultural background and laid in the mutual relations between history, culture and society, the thesis researched into the cultural features of Chinese medicine development in the early 20th century. The thesis was divided into 5 chapters.The First chapter introduced western medicine entering into China, its impact to Chinese social minds and its influences on modern Chinese medical treatment structure. Church medicine experienced many troubles to get harmony with Chinese society, but its advanced system, technology and church doctors' humanity earned popularity among Chinese gradually. It was church hospitals that promoted the transformation of the Chinese traditional relations of the medical treatment spaces and patients.The second chapter mainly researched into the origin and change of the controversy on Chinese and western medicines and analyzed its historical inevitability through anatomizing the background of Chinese medicine at the turn of Qing Dynasty and the Republic China. Chinese medicine was declining in modern China, but western medicine had more important influence increasingly, and it became more popular because a great number of medical students abroad came back to China. The academic positions of Chinese and western medicines happened to be counterchanged, although they stood facing each other in the layers of reality, system and culture until the early Republic China. The change was indicated in the following: western medicine took the place of Chinese medicine to go into administrative medical treatment system, the cultural advantage of western medicine was consolidated further, citizens' ideas on western medicine were established gradually and its complete advantage in clinic was confirmed.The third chapter analyzed the realistic fate and historical choose for Chinese medicine as one of Chinese traditional cultural carriers from the background of Chinese social thoughts and culture, facing "Wu Si" radicalism. Chinese medicine met the harshest criticism and negation by the intellectuals during this time. The conflict between Chinese and western medicines became sharper increasingly after "Ke Xuan Zhi Zheng" so that Chinese traditional medicine faced the danger of westernization completely. The decline of Chinese medicine was related to its own scientific system and the grow-up of western medicine, but the ideas of the group who alleged Chinese medicine should be abolished played an important role in it.The fourth chapter indicated the historical fate of the survival and development of Chinese medicine, based on the course of the abolishing Chinese medicine case and its opposition during the whole Republic China. The Chinese medicine circle argued with governments and the abolishing-Chinese-medicine group for over 30 years. The government was going to agree "abolishing-Chinese-medicine" in 1929, which pushed the controversy into the climax, but it was fought against by many people, so the government was forced to give it up. The "abolishing-Chinese-medicine" proposal was cancelled in the end. In conclusion, anti-Chinese-medicine events happened one by one during the Republic China, so the problem for Chinese medicine was to survive, and it was the theme of the development of Chinese medicine at that time.The fifth chapter analyzed the reasons for why Chinese medicine wasn'tabolished, explained the historical impact on Chinese medicine by the storm of abolishing it and pointed out the thinking on science and nationalism, tradition and modernization. The Chinese medicine circle got awaken, began to reform and seek active academic transformation after the abolishing Chinese medicine case. This case inspired us to think over that the conflict between science and nationalism, and the dilemma between tradition and modernization showed the difficulty of the development of modern Chinese medicine, the complicated features of that age and its sense in the ideology...