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Cholera, Public Health, and the Politics of Water in Republican Guangzhou*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 November 2012

SHUK-WAH POON
SHUK-WAH POON*
Affiliation:
Lingnan University, Hong Kong Email: swpoon@LN.edu.hk
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Abstract

Along with the establishment of the Department of Public Health in 1912, the implementation of public health policies became an integral part of city management in Republican Guangzhou. Yet the cholera outbreak of 1932 fully exposed the weaknesses of the medical and sanitary infrastructure of the city. Due to the Guangzhou government's inaction, the Fangbian Hospital, a local charitable hall founded in response to the bubonic plague of the 1890s, involuntarily took over the major responsibility for providing medical services for cholera patients in the early stage of the epidemic. Only after the death of hundreds of patients and Guangzhou being described as a ‘world of horror’ in the local press did the government-run hospital start to take a more active role. Epidemics have always served as catalysts for change in public health perceptions and practices. This paper attempts to explain how the cholera epidemic of 1932 changed the role of public health in the urban administration of the city. Emphasis is placed on analysing how the people of Guangzhou began to fight for a supply of clean drinking water once they came to realize the link between water and the spread of the fatal cholera epidemic in 1932. Clean water, which used to be seen as a commodity enjoyed by the privileged few, was now increasingly regarded as a citizen's right.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 47 , Issue 2 , March 2013 , pp. 436 - 466
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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Footnotes

*

I would like to thank Professor Angela Leung Ki Chi and the two anonymous readers of Modern Asian Studies for their insightful comments. I am also grateful to the Hong Kong Research Grant Council for its generous financial support for this research (CUHK 4572/06H).

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21 Guangzhou minguo ribao, 25 April 1929, p. 5; 3 May 1929, p. 5.

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29 ‘Medical and Sanitary Report for the Year 1932 by A. R. Wellington, Director of Medical and Sanitary Services’, CO 129/545.

30 Kōain, Shina ni okeru korera ryūkō no tenbō (Prospects of Cholera Epidemics in China), Tokyo, Kōain, 1940, p. 17.

31 Guangzhou minguo ribao, 19 June 1932, p. 2:2; Yuehua bao, 26 June 1932, p. 5.

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35 Shenbao, 24 May 1932, p. 13. In nineteenth century Japan, cholera was translated into katakana as ‘korera’ and into kanji as ‘huliela’. See, for example, Hidekata, Toyozumi (ed.), Ryuko korera byōron (A Study on Cholera Epidemics), Tokyo, Tōkei Shoin, 1883Google Scholar.

36 Zhongyang ribao, 3 July 1932, p. 2:3.

37 Yuehua bao, 6 June 1932, p. 5. Hu Cheng nonetheless suggests that, as in the past, the 1932 cholera outbreak in China spread from Guangzhou to Shanghai. See his ‘Xiandaixing jingji kuozhang’, pp. 100–01.

38 Yuehua bao, 17 June 1932, p. 5.

39 Yuehua bao, 11 June 1932, p. 5; 14 June 1932, p. 5. Guangzhou minguo ribao, 18 June 1932, p. 2:2. The nine hospitals included the municipal hospital, No. 1 Affiliated Hospital, No. 2 Affiliated Hospital, and six private hospitals. See Guangzhou Municipal Government Gazette, 396 (30 June), 1932, p. 86.

40 Yuehua bao, 9 June 1932, p. 5.

41 Yuehua bao, 11 June 1932, p. 5; 15 June 1932, p. 5.

42 Yuehua bao, 22 June 1932, p. 5. It is interesting to note that contemporary sources believed that the 1913 cholera outbreak in Guangzhou was spread by watermelons. See Inspectorate General of Customs, Decennial Reports, 1912–1921, p. 227.

43 Guangzhou minguo ribao, 7 July 1932, p. 2:1. For more cases believed to be caused by lychees, see Guangzhou minguo ribao, 16 June 1932, p. 2:1; 20 June 1932, p. 4; 4 July 1932, p. 2:2.

44 Guangzhou minguo ribao, 5 July 1932, p. 2:1.

45 Yuehua bao, 21 June 1932, p. 5. Guangzhou minguo ribao, 1 July 1932, p. 3:1; 9 July 1932, p. 3:1.

46 Zhongyang ribao, 3 June 1932, p. 2:3; 12 June 1932, p. 2:3; 15 June 1932, p. 2:3. Guangzhou Municipal Government Gazette, 400 (10 August), 1932, pp. 83–113.

47 Zhongyang ribao, 28 June 1932, p. 2:2.

48 Yuehua bao, 21 June 1932, p. 5.

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53 Yuehua bao, 14 June 1932, p. 5; 20 June 1932, p. 5.

54 Yuehua bao, 20 June 1932, p. 4. Guangzhou minguo ribao, 25 June 1932, p. 2:2.

55 Yuehua bao, 28 June 1932, p. 1.

56 Guangzhou minguo ribao, 26 June 1932, p. 2:2.

57 It is interesting to note that the deplorable situation in Guangzhou indirectly helped to strengthen the political authority of the Hong Kong colonial government among the local Chinese. In an editorial printed in Wah Kiu Daily, one of the leading Chinese newspapers in Hong Kong, the author expressed gratitude to the Hong Kong government ‘for the preventive measures [against cholera] to protect the health of the residents [of Hong Kong]’, which effectively prevented the epidemic from spreading there. See Wah Kiu Daily, 28 June 1932, p. 1:2.

58 Guangzhou minguo ribao, 29 June 1932, p. 2:2.

59 Yuehua bao, 24 June 1932, p. 8.

60 Yuehua bao, 25 June 1932, p. 1; 28 June 1932, p. 1; 30 June 1932, p. 1.

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65 Yuehua bao, 20 June 1932, p. 5.

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67 Yuehua bao, 15 June 1932, p. 5; 17 June 1932, p. 5; 21 June 1932, p. 4. Guangzhou minguo ribao, 22 June 1932, p. 2:2.

68 Yuehua bao, 25 June 1932, p. 5.

69 Guangzhou Municipal Archives, 4–01/1/215–2, p. 133.

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76 Guangzhou minguo ribao, 22 June 1932, p. 2:2.

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80 Huazi ribao, 25 June 1932, p. 2:2. The news report does not specify the ingredients in the bleaching powder the waterworks used.

81 Guangzhou Municipal Government Gazette, 415 (10 January), 1933, p. 64.

82 The Municipal Council was an elected self-governing body. In 1933, the Municipal Council of Guangzhou comprised 70 elected councillors. Twenty-four of them represented their occupational groups and the remaining 46 councillors represented the 23 districts of Guangzhou, with each of the districts represented by two elected councillors. The council was convened every six months. Yuehua bao, 20 November 1933, p. 5. Guangzhou Municipal Archives, 4-01/2/2, p. 144.

83 Guangzhou Municipal Archives, 4-01/2/2, pp. 88, 91.

84 Guangzhou Municipal Government Gazette, 430 (10 June), 1933, p. 86; 433 (10 July), 1933, pp. 59–60; 472 (10 August), 1934, p. 118; 477 (30 September), 1934, p. 93; 532 (10 April), 1936, pp. 115–16.

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