Research On Public Health In Modern Suzhou(1906-1949)

Public health is the everlasting need of human society. With the gradual evolution of humancivilization, public health develops from social self-regulation, stochastic response and charity activitiesto public facilities and public services advanced by the government and the society cooperatively. It isled by health administration, is approached with scientific methods and aims to guarantee and promotepublic health. In the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, stimulated by the western medicalachievements and the public health management system in foreign concessions, there was an intensepursuit for strengthening the nation by the practice and the modernization of public health. And inresponse to the epidemics in successive years, the whole nation commenced to scheme, construct andimplement public health administration. Thereby, China’s public health in modern sense, with the cityas the representative, came into being. Following the social trend and the appeal of the time, and out ofthe needs of local epidemic prevention and municipal construction, Suzhou, located in the south ofYangtze River in Jiangsu province,a famous city with a long history, developed culture and numerousmerchants, opened the beginning of public health and gradually formed a rough outline of it in theofficial and social cooperation.From the germination in the Late Qing Dynasty and the Early Republic of China to the preliminarydevelopment in1927-1937, and the rough systematism after the Anti-Japanese War, Suzhou’s publichealth evolves mainly in three aspects. Firstly, public health administration, formerly part of it, separatesfrom the police. Secondly，public health, formerly cooperated by the government and merchants, istaken over by the government, sometimes with the assistance of the society. Thirdly, public health,formerly only concerning cleaning streets to prevent epidemics, is developed into a multi-dimensionalsystem roughly including epidemic prevention and treatment,environmental hygiene, food hygiene,maternity-child health,school health and public health education. This development not only reflects thecommon trend of the time, but also represents the local features both in process and in form.Epidemic prevention is the core of public health in modern Suzhou, not only because it is a severeissue of the time, but also because of the pressure of local epidemics in this city in the south of YangtzeRiver with dense webs of rivers and a warm and humid climate. Two facets in contradiction emerged inthe epidemic prevention in modern Suzhou. On one hand, there existed various prevalent folk methodsto prevent epidemics; on the other hand, the government banned the backward epidemic preventionactivities and developed, cooperated with the social efforts, a set of mechanism of acute epidemicprevention and control in combination with temporary treatment and regular prevention. The binarycontradiction in epidemic prevention in Suzhou indicates that it has made zigzagging progress inconflict with customs and traditions, especially superstitious notions and actions, and has gradually won the heart of the citizens.Environmental hygiene and food hygiene,regarded as the root of epidemic prevention, hasbecome a basic part of public health in modern Suzhou, generally including street cleaning, garbagecollection, excrement and urine collection, improvement of toilet, improvement of drinking water,thehygiene inspection and management of sites for drinks and food manufacture and operation. Streets arecleaned daily at regular intervals; garbage is collected by the effort of the government and the market incooperation; excrement and urine are collected with the normalization of time, place and packing; oldtoilets are abolished and new ones are built with a decrease in number; drinking water hygiene relies onthe coordination of reform and “revolution”; food hygiene highlights seasonableness,institutionalization and the combination of passive banning and active planning and construction. Allthis work typically features public health in Suzhou.Due to the lack of funds,incompetence and perfunctoriness of the directors and executives,inveterate habits of the citizens, negligence and procrastination of the merchants, all these measures ofenvironmental hygiene and food hygiene are not as effective as expected and many schemes end innothing. However, there is no doubt that the government,in interaction and even confrontation with thesociety, has laid down a series of rules and regulations and did its utmost to put them into practice,which to some extent has improved the eco-environment and food hygiene of Suzhou, and hasmotivated the citizens to cultivate healthy style and concept of life, and furthermore has helped to pushforward the administration and institution of social management and public management in Suzhou, andaccelerate the modernization of the city.As the long-term pursuit, Maternity-child health, school health and health education have enrichedpublic health in modern Suzhou. Maternity-child health mainly includes new methods of deliveringbabies and health contests for babies. School health focuses on epidemic prevention, physicalexamination for students, and campus health education. Health education highlights wide participation,various forms and different sites combined with instructiveness, localization and interestingness.Although a lot of limitations and shortcomings are found in the practice of public health, such as simplefacilities, singular business, crude approaches, ill popularization and even seeming practice, they stillopen the beginning of maternity-child health and health education, and accumulate some valuableexperiences. All this work represents the efforts and consciousness of Suzhou government to safeguardwomen and infants’ health, strengthens teenagers’ physique and cultivate healthy concepts and habits oflife. It also demonstrates the local enthusiasm for public welfare of the social force in Suzhou whoactively participate in and push forward the cause of public health in interaction and cooperation withthe authorities.Public health is the outcome of modern changes in Suzhou, and it propels the social changes of thecity in reaction and zigzags in them. An interactive tension arises between public health and socialchanges in modern Suzhou. The interaction can be seen in the following two aspects. Firstly, itaccelerates the transform of life status, life style and health awareness of the citizens, which in someway enhances their appeal for public health, and then drives the evolution of public health forward.Secondly, public health has sparked the rise of public opinion, whose critical and enlightening functionspurs the government, enlightens the citizens and guides the whole society to cooperate in public healthwith joint efforts. It also strengthens the administrative consciousness of the authorities and the civic awareness and responsibility of the citizens. All this contributes to the possible advancement of publichealth in Suzhou and the modern changes of it.All in all, with the appeal for public health and the developing tendency of the time, and theadministrative efforts of the authorities in Suzhou in active interaction with the folk society, a briefoutline of public health in Suzhou has taken shape after the Anti-Japanese war. Nevertheless, on accountof a lot of restraining factors, the crude side of public health in modern Suzhou has also been exposed.The obstacles and difficulties Suzhou has encountered can be universally found all over the nation.Therefore, in some sense, the development of public health in Suzhou is the projection of that in thewhole modern China, especially in cities, and it is also the portrayal of the common fate of them at thattime. In any case, the remarkable pioneering contribution in public health Suzhou and even the wholeChina have made in modern times should be inscribed in history.