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

MODERN IMAGES OF CHILDBIRTH
Modernity is a commodity to be produced and consumed. Its presentation is itself an aspect of
modernity. According to Qin Shao, “After all, modernity is a fashion that requires validation –
to be modern is to be seen, judged, consumed, and thus legitimized as modern by the public.” 552
This is applicable both to modern obstetrics wards and obstetrical methods, as well as to the
modern midwives with their fashionable bobbed hairdos.
One of the primary sources of scientific obstetrics (and gynecology) was the China
Medical Missionary Journal. The history of this professional medical journal, affiliated with the
Chinese Medical Association, deserves a separate research project in its own right. The CMJ
was started in 1887 by medical missionaries in Canton. Initially, it was run solely by Western
medical personnel and focused largely on social issues: marriage, death, and birth notices;
arrivals and departures of medical men and women; problems of doing medical work in
(backward, dirty, uncivilized, heathen) China. However, as it grew and became multicultural,
with Chinese contributors and editors, its focus shifted by the 1900s to become a scientific-
minded publication. It published scientific articles on sanitation and public health, obstetrics and
gynecology, cancers, nutrition, and all other manner of health-related topics. It also came to
include columns for hospital reports and the Nurses’ Association of China.
Part of the reason for the turn to science was the editorship of Dr. Robert S.K. Lim, who
was elected president of the Chinese Medical Association in 1928. He drew heavily from Peking
Union Medical College’s research, scholarship, and its students, graduates, and faculty. By 1935
the association had 1,700 members and, according to contemporary C.C. Chen, began to “have a
552 Qin Shao, Culturing Modernity: The Nantong Model, 1890-1930 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004).
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