From Folk Stories To Medical Myth:The Re-presentation Of Liu Zhi Jie Gu During The Great Leap Forward(1958-1960)

Liu Zhi Jie Gu(cure fracture with willow stick,abbreviate to LZJG hereinafter)claimed to be a traditional skill of osteology,was in the form of myths,legends and folk stories in China for a long time.In July 1958,under the policies such as "Western Medicine Study Traditional Chinese Medicine" and "Explore Treasure-House of the Motherland Medicine",which put forward by the Party,and the call like "People's Medical Technology Revolution" raised by the Ministry of Health,LZJG was re-presented as the "precious heritage of the treasure house of Chinese medicine",and became a national well-known medical myth.There was a twist can be find in the process of the representation which were from the story to reality firstly,and from reality to myth followed.In this process,the Chinese Medicine doctor LIU Dafu showed us his great courage of exploring and his creative abilities,who worked as a typical case of laboring people.He concentrated all kinds of resources which he could get at that time,finished the creation work on the old skill with the help of the medicine knowledge and experiences from his own,and made it improved by western medicine.So he made LZJG from the legend became a reality,and made a base for the shaping work come after.LZJG derived from the longtime knowing traditional medical practices against fractures and the cultural implications of willow in folk life in China,it embodied the hopes and dreams of the underlying masses to conquer over the fracture pains.The representation and myth shaping of LZJG also reflected the expectation of the Party and the government to manifest the superiority of Socialism and enhance the legality of itself further with the help of a revival of traditional medicine technology in 1958.From the perspective of medical technology,LZJG belonged to a kind of open fracture with internal fixation technology,its effect was not only no better than the traditional traumatology's enclosed external fixation reconstructive technique,but also not advanced than the intramedullary nail fixation technology in western medicine at the same time.The"superiority" which it claimed of convenient and widely-used was also easy evolved into serious problems because of the infection and dislocation caused by poor disinfection on equipment,and the lame technology or postoperative nursing.In the process of representation and characterization on LZJG,there were staggered positions between political propaganda and clinical experiment:on the one hand,the results of experiment and clinic gave the realistic foundation to political propaganda in a specific period of time,on the other hand,with the rising of events,the gap between advocacy and practice was increasingly widening.From the results,the magical effect of LZJG which asserted during 8 months was eventually falsified by experiments after 6 years later.LZJG was the product of the special times of "Great Leap Forward" movement in medical and health fields in 1958-1960.It is a God-making movement in Chinese medicine field with multilateral participation,it reflected the intervention of political propaganda and mass movement on the development of medical technology.