Shanghai Saint Marie Hospital (1907-1951): A Game between Secularism and Religion

• In Event: Places of Conflict: Rediscovering Chinese Cityscape through Emerging Cultural Spaces

Abstract

The Sainte Marie Hospital was founded in Shanghai in 1907 jointly by the French Government and the Catholic Church, yet the two parties held different views on key issues like hospital construction, medical facilities and medical education. This article analyzes the factors behind the cooperation and conflicts between secularism and religious expansion in the public domain, which may help better understand the relationship between the medical practice and colonization. We also demonstrate the impact of modern medicine, an efficient instrument of civilization, on health care, political control and cultural discipline. Moreover, the entanglement and historical interaction of the underlying knowledge and power are exposed in detail. The primary objective of medicine rests with saving people’s lives while the ultimate goal of colonization lies in conquering other nations. Therefore, the phrase “colonial medicine” contains the conflict and contradiction inevitably. Western medicine undergoes great developments in China via the rapid modernization of public health, though the colonialism opens a door for it. These achievements are regarded to justify the legitimacy and validity of colonization. Western medicine directly enters into Chinese daily life by taking care of the sick, thus strengthening colonization. This process, known as the construction of modernization in China, vividly demonstrates the connotative invasion, as well as the Foucault's biopower.

Author

• Yi Ren, Shanghai Jiao Tong University