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Weisz, George: Chronic Disease in the Twentieth Century. A History. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014. 328 p. $ 29.95. ISBN 978-1-4214-1303-7

Year: 2015
Type: book-review
Abstract: 164 Gesnerus 72 (2015) some residents of infamous cancer villages.Further, while professionalization of the rural doctors themselves may have survived as Fang articulates, the broader barefoot doctor dedication to patient care has been largely lost.It is no surprise that rise in the number of health outbreaks as a result of severe environmental degradation has coincided with the disappearance of barefoot doctors in some parts of the country.As such, re plication of Fang's meticulous work into other parts of the vast Chinese countryside would help characterize outcomes where the rural remained rural.The strength of the book not only lies in its approach, but also in its dozens of charts, maps, and pictures, which deliver a powerful visual image of the topic under study.The cover image features a mountain village medical station where a female barefoot doctor, carrying a medical kit, presents herbs to two citizens, a cadre and an old peasant.Inside the volume are more black-white images about the barefoot doctors' practice and ideology.Readers not familiar with the relationship between Chinese political structures and the three-tiered health system will find valuable the appended health organization chart, the bilingual list of common medicines prescribed during the 1960s and 70s, and the glossaries of corresponding Chinese characters and measurements.In addition, the bibliography, notes and index provide helpful scholarly apparatus.While Fang's meticulous study does focus on a specific geography, this is also a great strength of the work.This focus yield particular insights, thus filling an important gap on the barefoot doctors movement.
Source: Gesnerus
DOI: 10.1163/22977953-07201011
Language: English
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W3117807534
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