Engineering Health: Technologies of Immunization in China's Wartime Hinterland, 1937-45.
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Authors
Publication Date
2019Journal Title
Technol Cult
ISSN
0040-165X
Publisher
Project Muse
Volume
60
Issue
2
Pages
409-437
Language
eng
Type
Article
This Version
AM
Physical Medium
Print
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Brazelton, M. (2019). Engineering Health: Technologies of Immunization in China's Wartime Hinterland, 1937-45.. Technol Cult, 60 (2), 409-437. https://doi.org/10.1353/tech.2019.0030
Abstract
During the Second Sino-Japanese War, the technological project of mass immunization united state health administrations and international aid organizations seeking to prevent epidemics in unoccupied China's wartime hinterland. This article examines a joint wartime effort between the Chinese government's National Epidemic Prevention Bureau and the League of Nations Health Organization to manufacture and distribute vaccines against smallpox, cholera, and other diseases in northwest China. The hardships of war presented challenges to the development of large-scale immunization, but also led to the establishment of international aid programs that helped Chinese microbiologists acquire standard cultures, animals, and equipment. Vaccination provided a means for the beleaguered Nationalist government to quell epidemics and resist the Japanese; subsequent state involvement in the process of managing transport of vaccines, organizing and training vaccinators, and mandating the shots suggests the significance of mass immunization, as well as its reliance on technological systems in which vaccines embodied emerging biomedical standards that the state sought to institutionalize.
Keywords
Vaccination, Microbiology, Health Policy, Technology, History, 20th Century, World War II, Delivery of Health Care, China
Sponsorship
National Science Foundation, United States
Identifiers
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/tech.2019.0030
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/278876
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