Columbia University Press
Imperfect Conceptions: Medical Knowledge, Birth Defects, and Eugenics in China
Key Metrics
- Frank Dik�tter
- Columbia University Press
- Hardcover
- 9780231113700
- 8.85 X 5.73 X 0.73 inches
- 0.8 pounds
- Medical > Public Health
- English
Secure TransactionBook Description
Imperfect Conceptions is a revealing look at the cultural history of medical explanations of birth defects that demonstrates how Chinese assumptions about the relationship of the individual to society form the very core of their attitudes toward procreation. Dik�tter explains the patrilineal model of descent, where a person is viewed as the culmination of his or her ancestors and is held responsible for the health of all future generations. By this logic, a pregnant woman's behavior and attitude directly influence the well-being of her baby, and a deformed or retarded child reflects a moral failing on the part of the parents. Dik�tter also shows how the holistic medicine practiced in China blurs any distinction between individual and environment so that people are held responsible for illness.
Drawing on cultural, social, economic, and political approaches, Dik�tter goes beyond a simple authoritarian model to provide a more complex view of eugenic policy, showing how a variety of voices including those of popular journalists, social reformers, medical writers, sex educators, university professors, and politicians all disseminate information that supports rather than questions the state's program.
Imperfect Conceptions reveals how Chinese cultural currents--fear and fascination with the deviant and the urge to draw clear boundaries between the normal and the abnormal--have combined with medical discourse to form a program of eugenics that is viewed with alarm by the rest of the world.
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