Biomedicine and Traditional Chinese Medicine in China in the 1950s: Modernizing, Uniting, and Scientizing

Abstract: Publications in the English in the past decades about medicine in China in the 1950s focused on political influence and Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) itself. This article, however, discusses the engagement of biomedicine into the development of TCM in the 1950s, specifically why, how, and in what aspects and to what extent biomedicine involved in the TCM. Through complementing the studies of the 1950s with data and cases that have not been well studied in the previous publications, the author argues that biomedicine played an active and instrumental role in modernizing and scientizing the TCM in the 1950s. Under the leadership of the Chinese Communities Party, the landscape of medicine in the 1950s was totally different from the previous regime. The TCM obtained special attention, underwent fast development, and secured a high status in China. The leaders did not intend to preserve the TCM merely as a national treasure, but to modernize TCM to make it compatible with the “New China”. In modernizing the TCM, biomedicine was not a bystander but served as the benchmark and an active player. Biomedicine devoted its resources—its professionals and scientific strength in the development of the TCM. Such devotion did not merely confine to “learning from the TCM”, but actively engaged in the research into the mechanism and efficacy of the TCM. Though scientization is part of the modernization, the article singles out the scientization by providing cases in the boom in biomedicine’s research in the TCM and discusses the significance. The biomedical research not only linked the TCM with modern scientific concepts and research methodology, but also expanded its own research scope, leading to the breakthroughs in the TCM medicines in the 1960s-1970s and to the building of the landscape of medicine in China.