Infectious Diseases And Modern Shanghai (1910 ~ 1949)

The history of diseases belongs to the international front field. At present, studies on this subject have just started in our country, and the research achievements are focused on several limited fields. Modern Shanghai was not only an economic and cultural center, which attracted people's attention, but also a place with different infectious diseases. Various kinds of social problems that the infectious diseases caused in Shanghai and responses from all walks of life, are a subject with both academic and realistic significance. Although this subject has already caused the academic circles' attention, it still lacks deep and systematic research with no academic works published. The relevant expositions are scattered in some social history treatises, and the thematic theses are comparatively fragmentary too.Based on a large number of files, newspapers and periodicals and other Chinese and foreign language materials, this thesis adopts multi-disciplinary methods, such as history, medical science, psychology, sociology, demography, economics,etc, uses the analysis frame of comparison between China and the West and psychology history method, and pays close attention to the thearetical problems such as the rise and fall of countries and social forces etc. Thus this thesis attempts to make a preliminary study of the complicated interactive relation between infectious diseases and the modern society of Shanghai. This thesis investigates the period of 1910—1949 and selects only the three infectious diseases—which caused great influence on society— plague, cholera, leprosy as examples to probe into the influences of infectious diseases on the modern politics, economy, culture, social structure of Shanghai of peacetime in three chapters. Since the characteristics of these three kinds of diseases are different and the ways of their social influences on modern Shanghai were also varied, expounding emphasises are different to some extent too. As to plague, this thesis investigates emphatically its psychological impact on people in Shanghai; as to cholera, the replying of the various circles of society is studied emphatically; and as to leprosy, this study will start from the Chinese Mission to Lepers that initiated in Shanghai to examine the attitude toward leprosy question of various circles of society closely, and then comb out the situation of setting up and operating this organization and its process of advocating relieving the lepers.This thesis is divided into four chapters with about 130,000 words.Chapter one investigates the situation of plague in modern Shanghai. As Shanghai lacked the media mouse fleas to spread the plague, plague didn't cause great political and economic influence on Shanghai population. More influence was psychological. In the course of dealing with the plague, the authorities of concession of Shanghai held the advanced epidemic prevention ideas and did what they would at will. Thus the differences in epidemic prevention ideas and the differences in the responses to and recognition of diseases between Chinese and the Westerners led to the panic in Chinese people and opposition of Chinese to concession...