Research On The Bubonic Plague In The Three Northeast Provinces Of China Under Xuantong's Role In The Late Qing Dynasty

The bubonic plague occurred in the Xuantong's role of Qing Dynasty in the three northeast provinces is the largest one throughout the 20th century in the world. But this act of epidemic-prevention was the first practice of epidemic-prevention in the modern Chinese-history. And it is significant to the health undertakings of modern China and the world. The plague began at the last two years of late Qing Dynasty and lasted for half a year. The plague area mainly covered the three northeast provinces, which were the source of Qing Dynasty and it extended to the capital, and the two provinces of Zhili and Shandong. More than 60,000 people died from the plague. Investigation into and evaluation on the measures and practice of the different parties to prevent the plague is not only significant to draw some experience to prevent epidemic, to the improvement of the governing thought of different levels of the present government and the policy-making, but also inspiring to the establishing the cooperating mechanism between the government and the social crisis.The plan of this paper is organized as follows. At first, the paper reviews the happening and the development of the plague in the three provinces and exploits the origin of the plague. The plague began from the Manzhouli grassland in the east part of Inner Mongolia. From September to November of the second year of Xuantong' role was the beginning of the plague. December to January of the next year was the stage of the plague's development and extension. The origin of its development and extension is what follows. In late Qing dynasty that the poor hunters captured a lot of marmots made bubonic plague transmitted from marmots to humain beings. The dirty and poor living conditions of that time facilitated the development of the plague. Large number of floating population doubled the scale and velocity of the plague. Moreover, the Qing government's ignorance of the plague made it spread very widely. Then the paperdescribes elaborately the epidemic-preventing acts and measures of the Qing government. The specific ways and methods of the government include segregation of population, cure of patients, partition of communication and establishment of epidemic-preventing place, etc. Next, from the perspective of epidemic-preventing acts of the various folk parties, an analysis is presented on the effect of the specific practice carried out by the autonomy committee, the chamber of commerce, the lower lever poor people and medical committee, etc. At last, the plague is deeply analyzed and the experiences and lessons from the plague are summarized. Furthermore, it shows the realistic significance of studying this subject.