A Critical Gaze of Scientific Medicine - Essay Example

A Critical Gaze During the of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, scientific medicine has become the dominant force of health care in theWestern world and doctors have achieved high social status and wield considerable power. Medicine is viewed as something good that improves the health of the nation and alleviates pain and suffering. This has led to the contention that more hospitals, more doctors, more nurses, more research and so on are essential for improvement in health (Seymour, 1980). This is belied from a historical perspective, as improvements in health have often come from raised living standards, changes in behaviour and general public health reforms, rather than from any specific advances in medical knowledge. Cosmopolitan medicine is said to be objective and bias-free, and doctors are seen as medical scientists, who are objective about their patients in much the same way as any other scientists are about their subjects of enquiry. Medical science advances through the scientific methodology of experimentation that leads to the acquisition of certain objective and unquestionable facts and an autonomous and bias-free body of knowledge. However, there are problems with this view of science, which scholars have challenged in general and with specific emphasis on medicine (Seymour, 1980). Critical medical anthropologists argue that all scientific activity is inevitably influenced by the society in which it is carried out and that the scientist more often plays a role in explaining and ultimately justifying various aspects of the way in which a society is organised. This study will apply the methodology of critical medical anthropology to analyze cosmopolitan medicine and its influences on women in Gold-dust Dynasty. Critical medical anthropology is a branch of medical anthropology founded upon Foucault’s perception that cosmopolitan medicine was shaped by a modern way of observation. It lays emphasis on the cultural and political-economic dynamics of health and sickness. The main theoretical perspectives of critical medical anthropology include the examination of the cultural origins of health and sickness; analysis of health policy, health resource distribution, and the role of the state in health care; exploration of the cultural relations among interacting medical systems and location of affliction within a framework of hegemony and resistance. The significance of critical medical anthropology lies in its recognition of class and related race and gender antagonism, as important determinants of health and sickness in human society. Critical medical anthropology attributes the global dominance of cosmopolitan medicine in the twentieth century not to its curative efficacy but rather to the expansion of industrial capitalism. From this perspective, in Gold-dust Dynasty, the dominance of cosmopolitan medicine can be seen as a result of the rise of modern industry and nationalist capitalism in China during the1920’s and1930’s. The pluralistic medical systems in Gold-dust Dynasty are embedded in a cultural matrix, wherein cosmopolitan medicine eclipses other medical systems. There are four major medical systems in the novel: cosmopolitan medicine, Kanpo medicine or “Japanized Chinese medicine,” traditional Chinese medicine, and folk medicine. Each of these is bounded with a set of cultural values. Cosmopolitan medicine applies physical reductionism as a central tenet. It focuses on the sickness of bodies, not on the individuals. All family physicians of the Jin family are majors in cosmopolitan medicine. The Jin family usually choose cosmopolitan medicine for all kinds of diagnoses and treatments of sickness. Kanpo medical theories combine the traditional Chinese medical system and Shinto medicine. In keeping with the rise of modern Japan, Kanpo medicine is considered to be more hygienic and responsible than traditional Chinese medicine (Lock, 255). The Jin family usually choose Kanpo midwifes for delivery of babies. Traditional Chinese medicine perceives good health as a balanced state of both the body and the mind. It focuses on health and health promotion. The Jin family use traditional Chinese medicine as nutritional supplements rather than as curative therapies. Folk medicine is portrayed as a symbol of feudal superstition in Gold-dust Dynasty. It only appears once when all other medical systems fail in the case of brain stroke of President Jin. President Jin eventually dies during the practice of folk medicine. In contrast to these practices of the Jin family, women from lower classes in Gold-dust Dynasty tend to believe in traditional Chinese medicine and folk medicine. The divergences in the choice of the medical systems reflect, from the historical context, the loss of authority of traditional Chinese medicine with the decline of the whole Imperial culture. The classical theories, as represented by yin-yang and Five Element theory, are deemed to be illogical, inconsistent and contradictory during the New Cutural Movement. Cosmopolitan medicine, however, is thought to be superior in medical theory and disease control. In the early 1910s, seeing hygienic modernity becomes a foundational element in the creation of the Japanese empire,1 the new Republican government energetically lent support to the establishment of cosmopolitan medicine in China. For purposes of budget economy and accelerating the speed in the requisite changes, the Republican government looked towards Japan, which is a geographical neighbour and culturally aligned country, for lessons on how to institutionalize cosmopolitan medicine and establish cosmoplitan medical service nationwide. Japan is seen as a more developed country in terms of medicine, leading to Kanpo medicine being highly valued in the early Republican China. Cosmopolitan medicine was adapted to meet the needs of the nation, but not towards the requirements of the patients in the early Republican China. Therefore it failed to produce effective cures for asthma, lumbago, neuralgia, and many other common sickness of that period. In Gold-dust Dynasty, cosmopolitan physicians of the Jin family had to combine cosmopolitan and traditional practices to bring the best results. However, traditional practices were employed to reinforce the legitimacy of cosmopolitan medicine. Patients cured of illness did not know that what they had consumed was nit just cosmopolitan medicine. In this way, the hegemony of cosmopolitan medicine is maintained through the absorption and collaboration with traditional medical systems. In the novel, the different levels within the cosmopolitan medical system itself also embodies the class structure during the 1920’s and 1930’s in China. In the hierarchy of the cosmopolitan medical system the upper class is composed of foreign physicians and foreign-trained Chinese male physicians, the middle class is made up of local-trained Chinese male or female doctors, nurses, therapists, and technicians, and the working class consists of Chinese female service personnel. Cosmopolitan medicine remains primarily a profession that cooperates with the semi-colonial, semi-feudal, and capitalist-oriented political-economic system of that time. Foreign physicians and foreign-trained Chinese physicians play the dominant role during the interactions between the patients and the cosmopolitan medical system in Gold-dust Dynasty, whereas nurses and service personnel are almost silent, which implies that the cosmopolitan medicine in Gold-dust Dynasty lays stress on the training of physicians, rather than the provision of care to patients. During the treatment, experiences of suffering and symptom expressions are explained as the depersonalized site of isolatable sickness episodes by physicians. Patients seek but do not get answers to their questions about their suffering and therefore develop their own understanding of their situations. For example, the formal wife of the biggest son of the Jin family is sick during her pregnancy. The physician prescribes her medicine without any explanation of her ailment. As a result the lady begins to perceive her baby as the cause of her physical and psychological afflictions, leading to plans for aborting the baby. Using the theoretical model of critical medical anthropology, in next chapter, I will do an analyses of the relationship between new women and cosmopolitan medicine, which will answer the following questions. Firstly, who has power over the agencies of cosmopolitan medicine in the novel? Secondly, how and in what form is this power delegated? Thirdly, how is power expressed within the health care system? Finally what are the conceptual consequences of the power relations? Read More