Angela Ki Che Leung's meticulous study begins with the classical
annals of the imperial era, which contain the first descriptions of
a feared and stigmatized disorder modern researchers now identify
as leprosy. She then tracks the relationship between the disease
and China's social and political spheres (theories of contagion
prompted community and statewide efforts at segregation); religious
traditions (Buddhism and Daoism ascribed redemptive meaning to
those suffering from the disease), and evolving medical discourse
(Chinese doctors have contested the disease's etiology for
centuries). Leprosy even pops up in Chinese folklore, attributing
the spread of the contagion to contact with immoral women.
Leung next places the history of leprosy into a global context
of colonialism, racial politics, and "imperial danger." A perceived
global pandemic in the late nineteenth century seemed to confirm
Westerners' fears that Chinese immigration threatened public
health. Therefore battling to contain, if not eliminate, the
disease became a central mission of the modernizing, state-building
projects of the late Qing empire, the nationalist government of the
first half of the twentieth century, and the People's Republic of
China.
Stamping out the curse of leprosy was the first step toward
achieving "hygienic modernity" and erasing the cultural and
economic backwardness associated with the disease. Leung's final
move connects China's experience with leprosy to a larger history
of public health and biomedical regimes of power, exploring the
cultural and political implications of China's Sino-Western
approach to the disease.
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