BUILDING THE NATION THROUGH WOMEN'S HEALTH: MODERN ...

traditional Chinese and/or scientific medicine. This chapter looks at various types of
publications on midwifery and maternal and child health, including local handbooks, government
proclamations, popular treatises on prenatal care, newspaper inserts, magazine supplements, and
popular stories about old-style childbirth practices meant to humor or frighten. Some were
translations of works by Western authors, and others were originally published in Chinese. By
using varied sources, we can get a clearer idea about popular, as well as privileged, notions of
modern maternal and child health in early twentieth-century China. This literature that sprung
from many different sources was perhaps more widespread than if it had come from a single
institution. As Lee and Nathan and others have written, the urban reading public devoured
popular literature, newspapers, bulletins, and fiction, and then passed along worn copies for use
in less developed areas. 514 Storytellers related the information to the illiterate. Newspapers and
journals exploded in number around the turn of the twentieth century. According to Britton,
there were 15 reported periodicals in China, but by 1898 there were 60. By 1912, that number
had grown to 487. 515 Information about science, modernity and nation building – including
treatises on modern prenatal care and child-rearing methods – was readily available, especially in
the cities. According to a 1935 study, of 345 magazines published by Shanghai Magazines
Company (Shanghai zazhi gongsi上海杂志公司), 27 had titles related to “Medicine and
Hygiene,” while in 1936 the Life Publications Company (Shenghuo shudian 生活书店) had 13
titles on this subject, out of a total of 255. 516
Women formed a new audience for the print culture that grew around the end of the Qing
dynasty. As Barbara Mittler has examined, some Chinese newspapers and magazines catered to
514 R.S. Britton, The Chinese Periodical Press, 1800-1912 (Taipei: Chengwen, 1966), Lee, Modern Canton.
515 Britton, The Chinese Periodical Press, 1800-1912, 127.
516 Weindling, "Philanthropy and World Health."
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