Statium | Do you still need to talk about the modernity of hygiene today?

Author: Chongmu Young Writer

For various infectious viruses or plague, medicine and science are the most important means of studying, cognition, prevention and treatment of it. Even in ancient times, although various understanding and methods involving religion, superstition or culture will form a different understanding of plague, the final solution always finds the correct medical plan. With the formation of the 19th -century virus and modern medicine, the understanding of the virus and plague has gradually become a professional field, and it has generally benefited from the human society. In this transition, people's awareness of virus and plague also changes, especially with the strong dominance of modernity, making medical science and many concepts become the basic knowledge reserves of modern society and modern people, and it Often beyond individuals, it is also closely related to the formation of modern nation -states and the concept of national nation.

The concept of "hygiene" in modern China still affects us

American sinologist Luo Fuyun studied in his book "Sanitary Modernity: The Significance of the Health and Diseases of Chinese Merchants Port", which focused on "hygiene", a noun in modern China, and introduced it. Formed in Chinese cities about "hygiene" modern western medicine and health knowledge. The core point is the close relationship between "hygiene" and modernity, that is, whether individuals or ethnic, or the country pays attention to sanitation itself, it reflects whether they are "modern". To this end, modern Chinese knowledge elites have absorbed the knowledge of modern medicine and public health in the West, and on the other hand, they also correctly corrected and adjusted according to their own traditions.

In modern China's anxiety about "modernity", we will see in many such studies, and the modernity reflected by the medical, bacterial and public health fields of Sinologists such as Luo Fuyun, Fei Weikai, and Fengke will be seen. Anxiety is often more vivid. As Luo Fuyun pointed out, for traditional Chinese, health refers to a set of cultivation methods for life and life. This is just like the health method found in ancient Greece. There are many. Similarity. With the development of modern medical knowledge, the scope involved in the Department of Health began to shrink and eventually became a subsidiary of medical and public health. It went to individuals to the country. A sanitary organic body became the most standard subject of modernity.

Although we rarely see concentrated sanitary movements at present, the concept of sanitation has long penetrated into people's daily life under the promotion of modern knowledge and government. Especially after the emergence of a new epidemic, various health institutions and hospitals once again conduct related virus knowledge for the public to remind the health and health issues that need attention in the epidemic. It is precisely at this special moment that we found that the birth of the modern Chinese "hygiene" concept and system studied by Luo Fuyun still affects our current life, especially the generation of health and some general medical and health knowledge. Let people have the most basic knowledge reserves and psychological defense when facing virus infection.

However, such knowledge reserves are also facing restrictions on new viruses and medical research itself, just like the new crown virus and various studies around it. Finally, through the current prosperous and complex Internet and various self -media, they are widely spread and spread, and many of them are often muddy and mixed with many sensational or wrong information. Therefore, it can only be popularized through various professional channels to eliminate these error knowledge, so that people can better and more accurate prevention in the epidemic.

The best way to deal with the epidemic is science

But whether it is hygiene knowledge or prevention measures for viruses, it often does not only involve medical and scientific issues. Luo Fuyun's research is mainly concentrated in the semi -colonial Tianjin in modern times, and observes the friction and struggle of various political, cultural and economic forces through the durable method. Specifically decided and influence the cognition and preventive measures for various epidemics. It is also here that we can find this seemingly small hygiene problem, but it is actually implicated by individuals, nations, and countries' imagination and understanding of themselves. And this will also appear when various plague raging. It seems to be the problem of virus prevention and public hygiene, but it has more profound significance behind it.

Even so, there is a core concept that has never been abandoned, that is, the actions taken by people and the concepts that they depend on in the face of virus and plague. Today, no one will use religion or some witchcraft to understand the virus and plague, nor will the infected person be regarded as a sinner or a moral corruption, because the development of medical and public health and its scientific guarantee that we have viruses and the virus and their scientificity. The best way to deal with epidemic treatment. This basic concept of modern scientific epidemic prevention itself is regarded as a test strip that tests the individual or a country that is really "modern". Even a closed country must rely on this set of modern scientific epidemic prevention measures to solve the epidemic situation. Poor trouble. This is no doubt about this. But at the same time, we will also find that various traditional views on viruses, infections and epidemic prevention are still spreading, and the concepts criticized by these modern public epidemic prevention systems have also appeared in Luo Fuyun's research. It is often not an epidemic, but to prevent the competition between various forces behind it.

The core concept of "sanitary modernity"

Because of this, we will repeatedly see the popularization and emphasis on scientific and medical understanding of science and medicine in the epidemic, because the core of solving the epidemic is medical issues. Related prevention measures and vaccines will disappear. And this concept is also the core concept of "sanitary modernity". It is believed that through scientific research, it can remove the various superstitions and wrong concepts of virus and infection in tradition.

And it is precisely this "removing charm" process shaped modern individuals -hygiene not only involves external personal health (strong body), but also in fact to build a healthy individual (mind and spirit). Here, we cannot ignore the metaphoricality of "hygiene" -as well as the image of the national country. A "hygiene" country is a modern country. As Liang Qizi discovered in his book "Ma Feng", in order to shape his "hygiene" image in modern times, he launched a centralized isolation of patients with leprosy.

To a large extent, we are still on the extension of sanitary modernity in modern China, and even after a round of the sanitary movement organized by individuals to the government, the concept of "sanitation" still It has not really popularized or said that modern individuals have not been created. Especially when we are in a new epidemic, the ghost that has been criticized and abandoned (the superstition view of the virus and the plague) has come again, and medicine, science, and public health have had to raise the knife as modern knights and go to the horse again. Defend their own authority.

Source | Jingbao APP

Edit: Chen Jianguo

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