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

irths were attended by untrained midwives and twenty-five percent by only the parturient
woman’s relatives or the parturient woman herself. 47 This means that Marion Yang’s new
midwives reached only twenty-five percent of Beijing’s childbearing population at the height of
her modern midwifery campaign. However, the number of registered trained midwives grew
considerably during this time, from 1883 in 1934 to 6000 in 1948. 48 Maternal and infant
mortality was much lower in areas served by these midwives. In 1948, the infant mortality rate
in areas served by modern midwives was an estimated 11 percent, and maternal mortality was
estimated by some to be an astoundingly low .4 percent. 49 In comparison, the overall infant
mortality rate in China in the early 1950s was 200 per 1000, or 20 percent. 50
Urbanites were more likely to patronize modern medicine in part because that is where
most facilities were located, and also because cities were the primary focus of modernization
efforts, including the development of modern medical enterprises. In 1935, for example, almost
half of all modern physicians were practicing in Jiangsu and Guangdong provinces. 51 Most
Chinese did not have access to traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) or modern medicine, nor
could they afford it. Public health modernizer Wu Liande estimated in 1937 that 65 percent of
Chinese still relied on TCM, 4.3 percent utilized modern medicine, while around 26 percent died
without receiving any treatment. 52 While some campaigns like James Yen’s Mass Education
Movement centered on rural areas like Dingxian and included some maternal and child health
47
Grant, "Midwifery Training."
48
Marion Yang, letter to Dr. Frank E. Whitacre, June 8, 1948, Folder 538, Box 76, Record Group (RG) IV2B9,
Rockefeller Archive Center (hereafter RAC), Sleepy Hollow, New York.
49
Ibid.
50
Information Office of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China, “Children’s Health Care,” White
Papers of the Government (Beijing, April 1996). http://www.china.org.cn/e-white/children/c-3.htm.
51
Hsi-ju Chu and Daniel G. Lai, "Distribution of Modern-Trained Physicians in China," Chinese Medical Journal
49 (1935): 544-45.
52
Wu Liande, "Fundamentals of State Medicine," Chinese Medical Journal 51 (1937): 773-813.
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