Hygienic Modernity: Meanings of Health and Disease in Treaty-Port China (Asia: Local Studies / Global Themes Book 9)

Placing meanings of health and disease at the center of modern Chinese consciousness, Ruth Rogaski reveals how hygiene became a crucial element in the formulation of Chinese modernity in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Rogaski focuses on multiple manifestations across time of a single Chinese concept, weisheng —which has been rendered into English as "hygiene," "sanitary," "health," or "public health"—as it emerged in the complex treaty-port environment of Tianjin. Before the late nineteenth century, weisheng was associated with diverse regimens of diet, meditation, and self-medication. Hygienic Modernity reveals how meanings of weisheng, with the arrival of violent imperialism, shifted from Chinese cosmology to encompass such ideas as national sovereignty, laboratory knowledge, the cleanliness of bodies, and the fitness of races: categories in which the Chinese were often deemed lacking by foreign observers and Chinese elites alike. Placing meanings of health and disease at the center of modern Chinese consciousness, Ruth Rogaski reveals how hygiene became a crucial element in the formulation of Chinese modernity in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Rogaski focuses on multiple manifestations across time of a single Chinese concept, weisheng--which has been rendered into English as "hygiene," "sanitary," "health," or "public health"--As it emerged in the complex treaty-port environment of Tianjin. Before the late nineteenth century, weisheng was associated with diverse regimens of diet, meditation, and self-medication. Hygienic Modernity reveals how meanings of weisheng, with the arrival of violent imperialism, shifted from Chinese cosmology to encompass such ideas as national sovereignty, laboratory knowledge, the cleanliness of bodies, and the fitness of races: categories in which the Chinese were often deemed lacking by foreign observers and Chinese elites alike.--Publisher description Frontmatter List of Illustrations (page vii) Acknowledgments (page ix) Prologue: Sun the Perfected One's Song of Guarding Life (page xiii) INTRODUCTION (page 1) 1. "CONQUERING THE ONE HUNDRED DISEASES": WEISHENG BEFORE THE TWENTIETH CENTURY (page 22) 2. HEALTH AND DISEASE IN HEAVEN'S FORD (page 48) 3. MEDICAL ENCOUNTERS AND DIVERGENCES (page 76) 4. TRANSLATING WEISHENG IN TREATY-PORT CHINA (page 104) 5. TRANSFORMING EISEI IN MEIJI JAPAN (page 136) 6. DEFICIENCY AND SOVEREIGNTY: HYGIENIC MODERNITY IN THE OCCUPATION OF TIANJIN, 1900-1902 (page 165) 7. SEEN AND UNSEEN: THE URBAN LANDSCAPE AND BOUNDARIES OF WEISHENG (page 193) 8. WEISHENG AND THE DESIRE FOR MODERNITY (page 225) 9. JAPANESE MANAGEMENT OF GERMS IN TIANJIN (page 254) 10. GERM WARFARE AND PATRIOTIC WEISHENG (page 285) CONCLUSION (page 300) Glossary (page 307) Notes (page 319) Bibliography (page 365) Index (page 397)