A Diasporic Travelogue of the Chinese Anti-Malaria Materia Medica' Yao' : 'Changshan'

• In Event: (Re)Thinking Mobilities and Chinese STS:" The Politics, Practices, and Cultural Logics of Diasporic Chinese Scientists in Technosciences, 1919–2018

Abstract

Back in the l940’s in China, 'Changshan' (whose root is used as a 'yao' to treat malaria) figured in a controversy between TCM and biomedical practitioners. This resulted in the 'Changshan’s'traditional 'Qi 'properties being hegemonically translated as an ‘unidentified isolated alkaloid’ and reworked into the biomedical socio-technical network. The values of Western science became the sole criterion upon which TCM was to be judged. To be accepted as ‘scientific’ the elements of TCM practice had to be de-localized and placed in ‘universal’ theoretical frames.In a critique this hegemonic mode of translation which governed the interaction between the two medical knowledge systems, Dr. Sean Hsiang Lin Lei pictured this dominant translation network in this way:
In short, in the Reversed-Ordered Program, Chinese drugs
would more or less circulate in their traditional socio-
technical network until Western-style doctors succeeded
in materially reducing them into the constituents of their
network. In this case, Chinese doctors had a good chance
to travel with the Chinese drugs into places where they
had not previously had access (like in hospitals). On the
contrary, if the Received Program did work, the fully
scientised drugs would be taken away from the hands
of Chinese doctors. Drugs would be synthesised chemically,
named by their chemical composition, designated to treat
“Western” diseases, and circulated in the network of
Western-style hospitals, laboratories and pharmacies.
Chinese doctors had nothing to do and nowhere to go
except to watch the inevitable demise of Chinese medicine.

Author

• Rey Calingo Tiquia, University of Melbourne