Nahan yu Fanghuang (《呐喊与彷徨》) is a systematic scholarly monograph that explores the formation, development, and historical significance of the community of female physicians in modern China. Set against the backdrop of profound social upheaval and the intersection of burgeoning feminist movements, the book provides a comprehensive analysis of the historical trajectory of the professionalisation of female doctors. It argues that the professionalisation of female physicians served as a critical nexus for modernisation and the transformation of gender relations, playing a pivotal role in advancing women’s liberation, the scientisation of medicine, the dissemination of public health concepts, and the construction of a modern healthcare system. Consequently, the book holds significant academic value for research into modern Chinese social transition, medical history, gender studies, and health culture. The author, a Ph.D. from the Beijing University of Chinese Medicine currently teaching at its School of Chinese Classics, previously published the monograph The Sound of Crickets: Ancient Medicine from the Perspective of Fertility (螽斯振振: 生育視閾下的古代醫學), which provided the foundational research for this issue.
The book is structured into five primary sections. The first part, ‘Genesis: The Social Soil for the Emergence of Female Physicians’, draws upon the Biographies of Chinese Physicians through the Ages. From a dataset of over 20,000 practitioners, the author sifts out and discusses female healers, noting that pre-late Qing female medical practice was primarily concentrated in gynaecology and paediatrics. The author reconstructs the diverse landscape of female healing prior to the late Qing, observing that while female physicians were rarely recorded in official histories, their medical activities in folk society were incessant.
The second part, ‘Texts: Recovering the Writings of Female Practitioners of Chinese Medicine,’ focuses on four key figures: Tan Yunxian (談允賢)’s Sayings of a Female Physician (Nüyi Zayan 女醫雜言), Gu Dehua (顧德華)’s Medical Cases of the Flower-Rhyme Pavilion (Huayunlou Yi’an 花韻樓醫案), Zeng Yi (曾懿)’s Collected Works of the Ancient Joy Room (Guhuanshi Ji 古歡室集), and Sun Xitai (孫西臺)’s Medical Cases of the Daytime Star Pavilion (Zhouxinglou Yi’an 晝星樓醫案). Covering a broad chronological span from the 16th to the 19th century, the author examines how these four women, all from scholarly-official families, leveraged their elite domestic education to build a foundation for medical knowledge.
The third part, ‘Pathways: Multiple Models of Modern Medical Education for Women,’ describes the diversification of medical knowledge sources—predominantly Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and Western medicine—as the number of women studying medicine increased since the late Qing. The author analyses the general characteristics of female medical education under the influence of feminism. Through case studies of institutions such as the Shanghai Women’s Medical College of TCM and Western Medicine, the Suzhou Women’s Medical Society, and the North China Union Medical College for Women, the author utilises graduation yearbooks and media reports to evaluate the educational philosophies and pedagogical efficacy of these schools. Compared to medical colleges, midwifery schools—with their lower entry barriers, shorter duration, and lower tuition—played a crucial role in training professional midwives.
The fourth part, ‘Medical Practice: Female Physicians and the Reshaping of Women’s Health Concepts’, argues that because female physicians gravitated toward obstetrics and gynaecology, they occupied a dominant position in the medical landscape for women. The author observes that in areas such as childbirth, ‘breast liberation’, the prevention of venereal diseases, and anti-drug movements, state supervision was pervasive, rendering the female body deeply political. Starting in the 1930s, under the ideology of ‘home and state as one’, mothers were tasked with the responsibility of managing their own and their infants’ health, necessitating a greater mastery of hygiene. The social demand for ‘women’s diseases to be examined by female doctors’ further gendered the professional choices of physicians.
The fifth part, ‘Media: Modern Female Physicians in the Public Eye’, utilises periodical archives to discuss the role of female doctors in pharmaceutical advertisements and news reports. The author contrasts the strategies used by practitioners of TCM and Western medicine to attract patients: the former often emphasised family lineage, while the latter highlighted their educational background and hospital facilities. The establishment of professional organisations, such as the Shanghai Obstetricians Association and the Chinese Women’s Medical Society, reflected the different professional and regional networks formed by female doctors. Furthermore, the book notes that the resolution of medical disputes through litigation in the modern era marked a transition from a monarchical society toward a human rights-based society.
In summary, this study of female physicians from the late Qing to the Republican period offers a microcosm of the arduous journey toward professionalisation and social liberation during China’s modernisation. By focusing on the historical narratives of individual female doctors, the book strives to write a ‘history of real people’, embodying a strong sense of humanistic concern. However, current trends in the history of medicine place significant emphasis on the ‘patient’s voice’. In this regard, the book’s exploration of the authentic psychological experiences and bodily perceptions of female patients when encountering these women doctors—as well as the logic behind their choices between traditional and Western medicine—remains somewhat underdeveloped. Consequently, the discussion on the ‘reshaping of health concepts’ appears slightly unidirectional. This work is highly suitable for scholars of the social history of medicine and gender studies, as well as practitioners and researchers in the field of Traditional Chinese Medicine.
