The Plague In Period Of Emperor Xuantong's Reign And Social Change Of Northeast China In Late Ching Dynasty

In the autumn of 1910, a shocking world epidemic pneumonic plague started to spread atthe boundary of northeast China and Russia, while the national constitutionalism tide wasrushing turbulently. Then it extended along with the track line rapidly to the entire northeastChina and affected national capital, Chili, Shantung and so on in only two months. This wasthe first severe epidemic in northeast China, and the first large-scale pneumonic plaguedisaster in modern China. Facing the epidemic wreaks havoc, the anti-epidemic movementslowly launched under the government's lead. All-level governments invited the excellentdoctor and organized guard troop, raised fund for anti-epidemic, and established theanti-epidemic office and isolation hospital. Various social strata, including the gentry andmerchant in the epidemic area, the inhabitant, the police, the army, the newspaper office, themedical school student and the police school student etc, cooperated fully to struggle againstthe epidemic by adopting the policy of both treatment and prevention, whereas the preventionwas taken as the chief means. The isolation and the remained examination were taken toprevent the epidemic. At the same time, the inhabitants in epidemic disease area were obligedto live a neat life by the inspection, supervision. All feasible means were used to propagandizeand popularize knowledge of epidemic prevention in order to enhance the ability ofprevention from plague. And the attention was paid to raise people's social ethicsconsciousness, encouraged the infected people to submit a report on own initiative, so as toreduce the infection efficiently. And the epidemic situation was issued through all kinds ofmedia to suppress the rumor and stabilize the social order. The central government held aninternational medicine conference to study the strategy to deal with the plague. Theinternational society also vigorously supported epidemic prevention struggle, Chinese andforeign governments had launched the international cooperation on the epidemic prevention.Some foreign medicine experts also accepted the request, arrived northeast, helped tosuppress pneumonic plague, and some people had sacrificed own life for this. With thegovernments and Chinese and foreign people's joint efforts, the plague was suppressedapproximately five months later.Comprehensive surveying this disaster by hindsight, the occurrence of pneumonic plaguewas inevitable, but leading to infection by large scale, including Three Northeastern Provincesand even the national capital and Shantung was the consequence of negligence in the initialepidemic period. The simple infection media of pneumonic plague caused the epidemicdisease to infect the health unconsciously by the contact with the others, and the relativelyconvenient transportation vehicle had accelerated this kind of infection. Then, the epidemicrapidly developed.The fearful epidemic of pneumonic plague had brought more disaster to northeast Chinaeven the national economy, politics and so on. The plague destroyed the original social order,made the economic environment worsen. So the trade was bleak, it also brought one afteranother red to the government finance that already had too many problems to tackle besidesthe heavy loss of the people life and property. The pneumonic plague had provided an excusefor some peripheral countries to interfere Chinese internal affairs, too. After the pneumonicplague occurred, Russia and Japan were ready to make trouble, more coveted the sovereigntyof northeast area;But on the other hand, the epidemic exercised the people at the end ofChing dynasty, the anti-epidemic struggle not only impelled the establishment of public healthsystem in northeast China even in the whole nation, but also enhanced the ability of the wholesociety and the individual's resistance to natural calamities;The government's administrativepotency had been enhanced by the cooperation of all-level governments and each departmentin the process of anti-epidemic;During the process of anti-epidemic, the modern socialsecurity system are began to established. It can be said that, the anti-epidemic efforts impelledthe modern reforming of northeast society at the end of the Ching dynasty in a certain degree,at the same time also had provided the certain safeguards for the northeast even entire Chinesesocial change.