Ruth Rogaski, "Hygienic Modernity: Meanings of Health and Disease in Treaty-Port China," (University of California Press, 2004)

Placing meanings of health and disease at the center of modern Chinese consciousness, Ruth Rogaski reveals how hygiene became a crucial element in the formulation of Chinese modernity in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Rogaski focuses on multiple manifestations across time of a single Chinese concept, weisheng―which has been rendered into English as "hygiene," "sanitary," "health," or "public health"―as it emerged in the complex treaty-port environment of Tianjin. Before the late nineteenth century, weisheng was associated with diverse regimens of diet, meditation, and self-medication. Hygienic Modernity reveals how meanings of weisheng, with the arrival of violent imperialism, shifted from Chinese cosmology to encompass such ideas as national sovereignty, laboratory knowledge, the cleanliness of bodies, and the fitness of races: categories in which the Chinese were often deemed lacking by foreign observers and Chinese elites alike. Ruth Rogaski, Hygienic Modernity in China Weisheng and Chinese Modernity Health and Disease in Modern Chinese History Hygiene and Public Health in Tianjin Chinese Cosmology and Hygiene Practices Treaty-Port Environment in China Evolution of Weisheng in China Nineteenth-Century Chinese Health Concepts Imperialism and Hygiene in China National Sovereignty and Public Health Chinese Racial Fitness and Hygiene Modern Chinese Consciousness and Health Hygiene as Political Tool in China Transformation of Chinese Public Health Health, Sovereignty, and Modern Chinese Identity