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

of female nurses and physicians. I found much of this type of information in medical school
annual reports and yearbooks.
Because the jieshengpo were illiterate and left no written records, I have been unable to
uncover their voices. The only sources about them that I have found are extremely critical.
Aside from the occasional personal account of childbirth, the patients’ voices are also largely
silent. I do, however, include biographical material about the women who chose to become
modern midwives. Much of this literature is polemical, heralding the new science that would
save China and speaking with disdain about traditional Chinese birth practices. In the absence
of the patients’ and the jieshengpo’s personal voices, we can only speculate that many changes
occurred in the areas of patient autonomy, patient-caregiver relationships, and social functions of
childbirth.
Chapter One gives the earliest accounts of modern medicine and medical training in
China, beginning with the medical missionaries in Canton. During the mid-nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries, some local officials and gentry – even warlords – supported modern
medicine by founding hospitals and starting schools. We can trace the gradual development of
modern medicine as a field for women back to the mid-1800s. Germ theory and ideas about
public health that emerged in the United States and Europe during this time were applied to
China, with the additional hope of saving souls for Christ. Medical specialization began to occur
during this time as well, and obstetrics was one of the first specialties created. During this time
of political and social instability, modern medical efforts were scattered, depending mainly upon
the location of medical missions in China.
In Chapter Two, I trace the development of Republican and Nationalist policies towards
maternal and child health. It is during this period that women and children started to become
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