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The Global Cholera Pandemic Reaches Chinese Villages: Population Mobility, Political Control, and Economic Incentives in Epidemic Prevention, 1962–1964

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 August 2013

XIAOPING FANG*
Affiliation:
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Email: [email protected]

Abstract

In 1961 the seventh global cholera pandemic, El Tor cholera, broke out in Indonesia. Between 1962 and 1964, El Tor infected the southeast coastal areas of China. This pandemic occurred at a time of significant reorganization for both the rural medical and health systems and the people's communes following the failures of the Great Leap Forward. This paper explores how local governments led rural medical practitioners, health care workers, and villagers to participate in the campaign against the spread of El Tor cholera despite the readjustment and retrenchment of the people's communes as social, administrative, and political units. I argue that, during this period of flux, the local government strengthened its control over rural medical practitioners by institutionalizing their daily work practices and reducing their freedom of movement, whilst simultaneously providing incentives for health care workers to join the vaccination campaign. The people's communes and the household-registration system after 1961 put further restrictions on population mobility. This cellularization of village society greatly facilitated the vaccination, quarantine, and epidemic-reporting processes, and contributed to the formation of an epidemic-prevention system and eventually a response scheme for managing public health emergencies in rural China. This process reflected the complexity of the mutual interactions between the political and medical systems under socialism.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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107 Fuyangxian fangyi zhihuibu, ‘Guanyu shishi jiaotong jianyi gongzuo de jinji tongzhi’, FYA, Vol. 74-2-12.

108 Zhonggong Zhejiang shengwei, zhejiangsheng renmin weiyuanhui, ‘Guanyu jinyibu jiaqiang dui fangyi gongzuo de lingdao, xunshu pumie fuhuoluanbing de jinji zhishi’, HZA, Vol. 1-28-7.

109 Huadongju, weishengbu dangzu [Eastern China Bureau, the Party Leadership Group of the Ministry of Health] (2 September 1962). ‘Shanghai, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Fujian, Guangdong lianfang ji yuchang guanli banfa’ [United Prevention in Shanghai, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, and Fujian, and Regulations for Fishery Management], CAA, Vol. 1-2-137.

110 Hangzhoushi renwei [Hangzhou Prefectural People's Commission] (22 September 1962). ‘Guanyu jiaqiang fangyi gongzuo de jinji tongzhi’ [Emergent Circular on Epidemic Prevention Work], HZA, Vol. 23-27-30.

111 Huadongju, weishengbu dangzu, ‘Shanghai, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Fujian, Guangdong lianfang ji yuchang guanli banfa’, CAA, Vol. 1-2-137.

112 Fuyangxian weishengju, ‘Huoluan yufang gongzuo zhuanti zongjie’, FYA, Vol. 74-1-6.

113 Sheng fangyi zhihuibu, sheng weishengting dangzu, ‘Guanyu fuhuoluan fangzhi qingkuang de jinhou yijian de baogao’, CAA, Vol. 1-1-137.

114 MacPherson, ‘Cholera in China, 1820–1930’, p. 490.

115 A third treatment method was oral hydration with glucose containing electrolytes. Mildly dehydrated patients took the oral hydration directly. Severely dehydrated patients had to take oral hydration when their blood pressure returned to a normal level and when vomiting stopped after the emergent intravenous infusion. This treatment was not used until the late 1960s. See ziliaoke, Guangdongsheng weisheng fangyizhan xuanchuan [Document Dissemination Section of Health Department of Guangdong Province] (July 1978). Fuhuoluan de liuxingbingxue [The Epidemiology of El Tor Cholera], pp. 23Google Scholar.

116 Fuyangxian fangyi zhihuibu [Fuyang County Epidemic Prevention Headquarter] (27 May 1963). ‘Guanyu diyili fuhuoluan yisi bingli chuli ji jingguo qingkuang de baogao’ [The Report on the Treatment Process of the First El Tor Cholera Suspect], FYA, Vol. 74-1-7.

117 Fujiansheng difangzhi bianzhuan weiyuanhui, Fujian shengzhi: weishengzhi, p. 62.

118 For example, official records and local gazetteers usually included epidemic term yi (plague) or dayi (serious plague or pandemic) to refer to all epidemic diseases. Occasionally, diseases are named or specific symptoms of one disease might closely resemble those of another. See Benedict, Bubonic plague in nineteenth-century China, p. 109.

119 Lin, J. (1936). Zhongguo gonggong weisheng xingzheng zhi zhengjie [The Crucial Problems of Public Health Administration in China], Zhonghua yixue zazhi [China Medical Journal], 22:10, 965966Google Scholar.

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121 fangyizhan, Yuhangxian weisheng [Yuhang County Sanitation and Anti-Epidemic Station] (1990). Yuhangxian weisheng fangyizhi [Yuhang County Sanitation and Anti-Epidemic Gazetteer], Zhejiangsheng yuhangxian weisheng fangyizhan, Hangzhou, pp. 16, 183–184Google Scholar.

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123 fangyizhan, Yuhangxian weisheng [Yuhang County Sanitation and Anti-Epidemic Station] (1990). Yuhangxian weisheng fangyizhi [Yuhang County Sanitation and Anti-Epidemic Gazetteer], Zhejiangsheng yuhangxian weisheng fangyizhan, Hangzhou, pp. 16, 183–184Google Scholar.

124 Yuhangxian weishengju weishengzhi bianzhuanzu, Yuhangxian weishengzhi, pp. 183–184.

125 Zhonggong zhejiangsheng weishengting dangzu, ‘Guanyu jiaqiang yufang huoluan shuru wosheng de jinji baogao’, HZA, Vol. 1-28-7.

126 Fuyangxian weishengju [Fuyang County Health Bureau] (27 April 1963). ‘Qing zuohao huoluan yufang jiezhong gongzuo zongjie he jiaqiang yiqing baogao de tongzhi’ [Circular on Conducting Cholera Vaccination Work and Strengthening Epidemic Disease Report], FYA, Vol. 74-2-12.

127 Potter and Potter, China's Peasants, p. 301.

128 Fuyangxian weishengju [Fuyang County Health Bureau] (29 August 1963). ‘Guanyu dangqian zhuyao jibing qingkuang he fangzhi gongzuo yijian de baogao’ [Report on Current Situations of Major Diseases and Instructions on Prevention and Treatment], FYA, Vol. 74-2-12.

129 Fuyangxian weishengju, ‘Guanyu 1963 nian fuhuoluan fangzhi gongzuo de zongjie’, FYA, Vol. 74-1-7.

130 Yuhangxian weishengju, ‘1964 nian weisheng gongzuo zongjie’, YHA, Vol. 42-1-27.

131 Xu, Fuyangxian weishengzhi, p. 171.

132 Unger, the Transformation of Rural China, p. 7.

133 Yang, Disease prevention, social mobilization and spatial politics, p. 171.

134 Bashford, A. (2004). Imperial Hygiene: A Critical History of Colonialism, Nationalism and Public Health, Palgrave Macmillan, Houndsmills, New York, p. 44Google Scholar.

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136 Fujiansheng difangzhi bianzhuan weiyuanhui, Fujian shengzhi: weishengzhi, p. 63.

137 MacPherson, K. (2008). ‘Invisible borders: Hong Kong, China and Imperatives of Public Health’ in Lewis, M. and KMacpherson, K.Public health in Asia and the Pacific: Historical and Comparative Perspectives, Routledge, Abingdon, Oxon; New York, p. 24Google Scholar.

138 Yuhangxian weishengju weishengzhi bianzhuanzu, Yuhangxian weishengzhi, p. 193; Lin’anxian weishengzhi bianzhuan weiyuanhui [Editorial Board of Lin’an County Health Gazetteer] (1992). Lin’anxian weishengzhi [Lin’an County Health Gazetteer], Lin’anxian weishengju, Lin’an, p. 260.

139 Ai, X. (2 August 1989). ‘Jingti wenshen chong shinue—guanyu jiaqiang woguo chuanranbing fangzhi gongzuo de huyu’ [Being Vigilant of the Re-emergence of the God of Plague—The Call to Strengthen Prevention and Treatment Work of Infectious Diseases in Our Country], Renmin ribao [The People's Daily].

140 Guangdong difang shizhi bianzhuan weiyuanhui, Guangdong shengzhi: weishengzhi, p. 169.