IU School of Liberal Arts

IUPUI/Peking University Medical History Project Gets $240,000 Luce Foundation Grant

News Categories: Grants | History | International | Medical Humanities | Philanthropic Studies | Research

The Henry Luce Foundation recently awarded a three-year $240,000 grant to Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI), collaborating with Peking University Health Science Center (PUHSC) to study the history of Western medicine in China.

The project "Western Medicine in China: 1800-1950" will research an important area of medical and Chinese history; organize and improve access to resources documenting that history; and deepen the understanding in both the United States and China of the history of what have become many of China’s leading hospitals and medical schools, according to history Professor William Schneider, Ph.D.

"How western medicine is introduced into non-western counties is a subject of great interest today, albeit under a different name - global health," Schneider said. "Organizations such as the WHO and the Gates foundation stand at the end of a long line of medical aid and training from rich to poor areas of the world. The Chinese case, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, is one of the most important historical examples. This was a story not of Western impact and Chinese response, but of complex interactions, hybrid institutions and applications."

In the early nineteenth century, European and American missionaries began introducing Western medicine in China as an aid to their religious goals. At first the reception was insignificant, but with revolutionary changes to the content and techniques of Western medicine later in the century, that began to change. By the early twentieth century Chinese elites and the state began to embrace Western medicine as a solution to perceived individual and government weakness in the face of Western imperialism. The 1910s to 1940s saw a massive increase in philanthropic investment in medicine in China whose influence on post-1949 medical personnel and institutions can still be felt.

The "Western Medicine in China" project has two main activities. The first is to hold two scholarly conferences, one scheduled for Indianapolis in June 2012 and the other in Beijing, China, in the summer of 2013. These events will identify and bring together 15 to 20 North American and Chinese scholars who will present their latest research on western medicine in China and discuss promising areas for future research.

The second activity will be to identify historical research materials housed at over a dozen archives around the world with the intent of making the resources more readily available to interested scholars and students.  Finding guides and digitized copies of selected primary resources, documents and publications will also be made available online.  In August 2011, a post-doctoral fellow will arrive at IUPUI to begin work on the project.

Among the Chinese and North American archives collaborating in the project are Shanghai Municipal Archives; Sun Yat-sen University Medical School; Suzhou General Hospital; The Burke Theological Library, Columbia University; Harvard University; Presbyterian Historical Society; the Rockefeller Archive Center; and Yale University.

"This is the most novel contribution to the project:  to systemically identify and make available these kinds of resources," Schneider says. "Especially important is that many of the resources are outside of China . . . and are therefore not accessible to the people with the greatest interest. Relevant records in China will also be identified and where necessary catalogued with finding aids."

Schneider and Zhang Daqing, M.D., Ph. D., of PUHSC, are spearheading the research project.  Schneider is a professor of history and philanthropic studies and the director of Medical Humanities and Health Studies in the School of Liberal Arts at IUPUI. Zhang, also a history professor, directs both the Institute for Medical Humanities and the Center for History of Medicine at PUHSC, the medical school at Peking University.

"Western Medicine in China" is the outgrowth of an agreement signed in 2008 between the IUPUI and PUHSC medical humanities programs, and the IU School of Social Work on the IUPUI campus.  It also dovetails with the work of the Center on Philanthropy at IUPUI, Schneider said.  Other related and ongoing projects include the development of medical social work in China and teaching medical English to students in Chinese health profession schools.

Additional funding for the project comes from the IU New Frontiers in the Art and Humanities program, the IUPUI Vice Chancellor for Research, and the IU School of Liberal Arts at IUPUI.

The entire project is "a great example of how IUPUI can mobilize resources beyond the campus, both in this country and internationally to do scholarly research," Schneider said.

Published on: May 23, 2011