Missionary doctors vs Chinese patients: Credibility of missionary health care in early twentieth century China

Abstract

This paper deals with the encounter between the Chinese and Western medical missionaries in early twentieth century China. Based on data of two Canadian Protestant missions in China before 1937, this study reveals that medical missionaries were generally ignorant of Chinese medicine, and they regarded Chinese medicine as part of an inferior, heathen culture. Such a ‘mission-centric’ perspective prevented the missionary doctors from creating an effective doctor-patient relationship with the Chinese patients. To the Chinese, missionary health care provided an additional health care pathway. The functional complementarity of Western medicine to the pluralistic Chinese medical structure enabled missionary medicine to gain increasing credibility from the Chinese, although few Chinese actually understood the basic principles of Western medicine. Implications of this missionary doctor-Chinese patient relationship in China are discussed.