The Starting And Development Of Medical Statistics In China(1840-1937)

Medical Statistics career is an important part of modern public health and epidemiological investigation; it has a long process of start, development and perfection, and has great influence on Chinese medical science and health system. As the spread course of western medicine, medical statistics activity was affected by complicated factors from the external environment. With the expansion of European powers to China, it has close contact with the customs which had been controlled by the colonists. And with China’s political system reformed, the main bodies, ways and reasons of medical statistics practices had undergone a series of changes.The article is made up of introduction, body and epilogue three parts. The body of this paper is mainly divided into four points:the first point mainly inspects the start process of medical statistics in the late Qing dynasty from1840to1911.By discussing various factors which lead to the birth of medical statistics concepts and practice, the author find that these factors include three parts:missionary doctor’s practice, the customs statistics waves and self-demands of social change. What’s more, the medical statistics activities of late Qing dynasty can be divide into the individual behavior of missionary doctors, the institutionalized behavior of the customs and the autonomous behavior of the Qing government. According to different times, the author reveals that the purpose and the emphasis of medical statistics are different. Finally it discusses the achievement and influence of medical statistics in late Qing dynasty. Based on the investigation and research, missionary doctors and the customs officer achieved rich results in medical statistical work. Although the Qing government started late for medical statistics career, the active participation of health administrative organization is also a history progress.The second point discusses the preliminary development of medical statistics from1912to1927. In the aspect of health administration, whether from the point of system Settings or the point of health rules and regulations, BeiYang government health administration basically falls under the jurisdiction of the police system. While strengthening the functions of the police management of health, but there are many drawbacks in practice. In terms of the establishment of health statistics institutions, because of the old patrol system used till then, the setting of national health agencies had been not perfect. Mainly Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai and other cities represented the statistical functions introduced in health administration, it cannot implement throughout the country. In the practices of statistical activities, based on the study of the central government and the representative cities, the author find that the life of the residents was still under the control of the traditional surveys and statistics. In statistical works, there are many omission phenomenon. In the surveys of infectious diseases, for the frequency and the great harm from Communicable diseases, government promulgated the Regulations of infectious diseases, and the central epidemic prevention agencies began to the work of infectious diseases collection and statistics across China.The third point investigates the development and perfection of medical statistics from1928to1937. For Nanjing national government established the ministry of health, the central and local health administration system had been improve gradually; the health law and statistical functions had been improved and strengthened also. From the point of participants, in addition to the health administrative institutions, participants also include medical service agency, scientific research institutes as well as many medical personnel, etc. From the aspect of statistical way, due to the expansion of the health administrative function, participants in statistical practice mainly were professional health administrative institutions. The trained inspectors or statistical investigators had been used step by step; the reliability of data and the degree of specialization was also improved. From the point of infectious diseases statistics. Later period of the republic of China, the domestic epidemic situation of infectious diseases was still very serious. After the establishment of the ministry of health,"The implementing rules of infectious diseases prevention regulations" had been issued, and the central and local health agencies made investigations and statistics of infectious diseases improved for many times.The last point mainly discusses the influence of the modern medical statistical practice. The influence on the modern China of medical statistics is various, such as promoting the infectious disease report, popularizing knowledge of infectious diseases Understanding the disease distribution, types and casualties; Promoting the development of preventive medicine and nosology; Promoting the progress of public health, understanding the population growth, and guiding the development of social welfare and so on.Through reviewing and summarizing, the article finds that:Infectious disease is the main factor that harass human beings and is one of the focus of medical statistics work; Medical statistics is the key to perfect modern epidemic prevention system and to develop preventive medicine; National strength is the decisive factor for promoting medical statistics career; The cause of death statistics is the key and difficult point and also an important issue of modern public health administration.