UC San Diego UC San Diego Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Spit, Chains, and Hospital Beds : : A History of Madness in Republican Beijing, 1912-1938 Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6pn174g8 Author Baum, Emily Lauren Publication Date 2013 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO Spit, Chains, and Hospital Beds: A History of Madness in Republican Beijing, 1912-1938 A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in History by Emily Lauren Baum Committee in Charge: Professor Joseph Esherick, Co-Chair Professor Paul Pickowicz, Co-Chair Professor Cathy Gere Professor Weijing Lu Professor Andrew Scull 2013 The dissertation of Emily Lauren Baum is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication on microfilm and electronically: ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ Co-Chair ___________________________________________________________ Co-Chair University of California, San Diego 2013 iii EPIGRAPH It must be admitted that the art of the Story as I see it is a very difficult one… To be stories at all they must be a series of events: but it must be understood that this series – the plot, as we call it – is only really a net whereby to catch something else. The real theme may be, and perhaps usually is, something that has no sequence in it… C. S. Lewis iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Signature page ……………………………………………………………………………iii Epigraph…………………………………………………………………………………..iv Table of Contents………………………………………………………………………….v List of Abbreviations…………………………………………………………………….vii List of Images and Tables..……………………………………………………………...viii Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………….ix Vita………………………………………………………………………………………xii Abstract of the Dissertation……………………………………………………………..xiii Introduction………………………………………………………………………………..1 Chinese Medicine in Republican China…………………………………………...4 Colonial Medicine and Madness…………………………………………………..9 Anthropologizing Medical History………………………………………………13 Chapter Summaries………………………………………………………………17 Part I: The Deviant Lunatic………………………………………………………………22 Chapter 1. The Police: 1912-1928……………………………………………………….23 Troublemakers…………………………………………………………………...31 Defining Madness………………………………………………………………..37 Criminality and Insanity………………………………………………………....44 Things Fall Apart………………………………………………………………...51 Death……………………………………………………………………………..58 Backward Nation, Deviant Subjects……………………………………………..64 Chapter 2. Metaphorical Madness: Chinese Intellectuals and the Problem of National Insanity………………………………………………………………………66 Scientific Psychology and Psychiatric Taxonomy……………………………….71 The Pathological Nation in Sociopolitical Discourse……………………………82 The Escapist Individual in Literary Texts………………………………………..93 The Metaphorical Madman……………………………………………………..104 Part II: The Pathologization of Mental Illness………………………………………….108 Chapter 3. The Peking Union Medical College: 1914-1933……………………………109 The Struggle for a Psychiatric Clinic…………………………………………...117 v Old Problems and New Possibilities……………………………………….. …..122 A Compromise………………………………………………………………….129 From Asylum to Hospital………………………………………………………134 From Troublemakers to Patients………………………………………………..141 Madness as a Pathological Condition………………………………………......149 Chapter 4. Selling a Cure: Pills, Hospitals, and Mental Health Practitioners…………..151 Traditional Chinese Medicine in a Modern Nation…………………………….155 Advertising Cures……………………………………………………………....164 The Wei Hongsheng Hospital…………………………………………………. 173 The Wang Jiaxiang Hospital……………………………………………………187 Commercialization and its Discontents…………………………………….......193 Part III: Diverging Narratives…………………………………………………………..196 Chapter 5. The Psychopathic Hospital: 1933-1938…………………………………….197 Resolvable Problems…………………………………………………………...199 Ongoing Complications………………………………………………………...209 The Psychopathic Hospital and its Limits……………………………………...219 Theory and Practice………………………………………………………….....224 Chapter 6. Everyday Madness: Between Illness and Deviance………………………...230 The Mad Body………………………………………………………………….235 Ghost Stories……………………………………………………………………241 The Lunatic in his Social Context………………………………………………247 Unhealthy Social Relations……………………………………………………..255 Layers of Madness……………………………………………………………...262 Chapter 7. Being Mad: Class, Subjectivity, and Public Knowledge in the Making of Madmen………………………………………………………………….266 Madness of the Masses…………………………………………………………272 Experiencing the Mad Condition……………………………………………….278 High-Class Madness……………………………………………………………283 Perceiving the Abnormal Self …………………………………………….…….293 Epilogue. Beyond Beijing: Psychiatric Care in Comparative Perspective……………..297 The John G. Kerr Refuge for the Insane………………………………………..298 The Shanghai Mercy Hospital………………………………………………….303 A Comparative Perspective…………………………………………………….307 Concluding Thoughts…………………………………………………………...311 Glossary………………………………………………………………………………...316 References……………………………………………………………………………....318 vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS Beijing Municipal Archives BMA Guomindang KMT Peking Union Medical College PUMC Public Security Bureau PSB Rockefeller Archive Center RAC Shanghai Municipal Archives SMA vii LIST OF IMAGES AND TABLES Table 3.1: Treatments Employed at the Psychopathic Hospital………………………..147 Image 4.1: Hysteria and Hypnosis in France…………………………………………...185 Image 4.2: Madness and Hypnosis in Beijing………………………………………….185 Image 5.1: The Municipal Asylum……………………………………………………..210 Image 5.2: The Psychopathic Hospital………………………………………………....210 Table 5.1: Patients at the Psychopathic Hospital……………………………………….212 Image 6.1: Lunatics Should Be Reprimanded……………………………………….....254 Image 6.2: Lunatics Should Be Controlled……………………………………………..254 viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In the process of writing this dissertation, I have found that help has often appeared in unexpected forms. Those who have kept me on task, and those who have purposely gotten me off of it, have both contributed in innumerable ways to the completion of this project (as well as the maintenance of my sanity, which has been a foremost prerequisite for having done so). My advisors, Joseph Esherick and Paul Pickowicz, have read, commented on, and offered suggestions for how to improve each chapter as I have progressed through this project. I am profoundly grateful for their help and encouragement over the past five years, and this dissertation would not have looked nearly the same without their honest criticism and ongoing support. Much of the historiographical background for this dissertation was shaped thanks to Andrew Scull, who not only pointed me in intellectual directions I would have never stumbled upon myself, but has also been an ongoing source of humor and encouragement. My committee members, Cathy Gere, Suzanne Cahill, and Lu Weijing (who so enthusiastically stepped in at the last minute) have further offered insightful comments for how to improve and revise this work. My research was generously funded by grants from Fulbright-IIE, the Social Science Research Council, the Rockefeller Archive Center, and the History Department of UCSD. Throughout my research, I have been continually surprised at the generosity of others. Janet Upton at Fulbright Beijing kept me apprised of pertinent events and conferences; Lee Hiltzik at the Rockefeller Archive Center greeted me on my first day with a cartful of useful documents; my colleagues at SSRC brought numerous works of medical anthropology to my attention; and the accommodating staff at the Beijing ix Municipal Archives gave me the freedom and space to pursue my research without interruption. When I (naively) told them that I planned on taking copies of my archival documents out of the country, they knowingly inquired, “Are you quite sure you want to do that?” They did not mind when I quickly changed my response. My professors and colleagues at UCSD have played a formative role in my intellectual development. Sarah Schneewind has dependably offered a critical eye to my research papers and grant applications, and her comments were indispensable for my success in securing research funding and performing well on the job market. From my first historiography seminar to my qualifying exam and dissertation defense, Judd Kinzley, Justin Jacobs, David Chang Cheng, Maggie Greene, and Amy O’Keefe have consistently offered help, support, and humor, both inside and outside the classroom. In China, Yang Nianqun (扬念群) provided me with an institutional affiliation at Renmin University and helped me gain access to the municipal archives. Yvon Wang introduced me to Zhou Zuoren’s diary entries, which ended up in chapter seven, and Meir Tlebalde (梅叶尔) brought the article in Caixin to my attention. In Taiwan, Sean Hsiang- lin Lei (雷祥麟) met with me at length to discuss my research frustrations, and helped point me in promising directions. Shayan Momin, in return for finding an endless stream of excuses for keeping me from my work, has demanded an entire paragraph break in my acknowledgements section and 30% of the royalties from my book. Finally, Donna Baum and John Moule have always supported my academic endeavors, even when they have taken me to the opposite side of the country and the x other half of the world. They have always had more confidence in me than I have had in myself, and for that