The Role and Influence of American Medical Missionaries in the Modern Hygiene Movement in Canton, 1835–1935

Abstract

The American medical missionary movement in the 19th and 20th centuries in South China was one of the important movements to influence the country. This movement had an impact on hygiene modernization in China generally and in Canton particularly. The American doctors in Canton not only criticized the Chinese for lacking modern concepts of bodily cleanliness and fitness, but also participated in campaigns against contagious disease. Both American doctors and the Cantonese government took part in the hygiene and health management of Cantonese residents. This article focuses on how the American medical missionaries encouraged the Cantonese to change their unhygienic habits and to improve the unsanitary environment of Canton, conducted vaccination work, fought the plague, treated opium addicts and lepers, and promoted rural hygiene and health work. This article also studies how the Cantonese elites, encouraged by Americans and impressed by Western preventive medicines and measures to some degree, advocated s...