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Social History of Medicine Advance Access published online on November 3, 2009
Social History of Medicine, doi:10.1093/shm/hkp045
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© The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for the Social History of Medicine. All rights reserved.

Discovering ‘The Secrets of Long and Healthy Life’: John Dudgeon on Chinese Hygiene1

Shang-Jen Li*

* Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica, Nankang, Taipei 11529, Taiwan. E-mail: shangli{at}mail.ihp.sinica.edu.tw


  Abstract

John Dudgeon, a Scottish physician practising medicine in China in the second half of the nineteenth century, wrote extensively on the diet, dress, housing and social customs of the Chinese and their implications for health. While Dudgeon's contemporaries were highly critical of Chinese sanitary conditions and personal hygiene, he argued that China's lifestyle and urban conditions were superior to those in Europe. Dudgeon's observations in China, combined with his views on deteriorating economic conditions and heightened social tensions in Scotland, resulted in his critical reflections on British metropolitan culture and lifestyle. His admiration of Chinese hygiene and his conception of the diseases of civilisation were closely connected to his nostalgic vision of a paternalistic society. It is the contention of this paper that Dudgeon's eccentric medical ideas manifested the interplay between metropolitan medical theories and the overseas experiences of a British physician in China.

Keywords: China; treaty port; personal hygiene; public health; medical missionary; disease of civilisation


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