Abstract: Treatise on Easy Childbirth, the most influential obstetric and gynecology work in the Qing Dynasty, was completed in the late Kangxi period, and was re—edited and reprinted more than 40 times in Qianlong period. They were republished in many provinces, and some other Easy Childbirth Texts were derived, such as The Main Points of Expanded Easy Childbirth and The Treasure of Women and Infants. The results of edition survey show that the early publication of Easy Childbirth Texts is a kind of continuous adsorption growth, and almost every reprint is accompanied by new content, including medical prescriptions and medical diagrams, annotations and comments, persuading benevolence and education contents. The general feature of the evolution of Easy Childbirth Texts is that they are becoming more and more popular and practical, especially the trend of persuading goodness has penetrated into the links of book compilation, printing and circulation, leading to the gradual evolution of Easy Childbirth Texts from medical books to morality books. By analyzing the nature of book and the dynamic changes of the editor's identity, we could not only fills up the gap in the philological research of Treatise on Easy Childbirth, but also investigate the social phenomenon of the downward movement and even variation of medical knowledge in the Qing Dynasty.
Key words: Treatise on Easy Childbirth, Lay Buddhsit Jizhai, Ye Feng, The Main Points of Expanded Easy Childbirth

For most of the 20th century, a disinfectant solution with sodium hypochlorite as its main component—known as Dakin's solution—was only invented and extensively used for wound disinfection in clinical settings due to the demand for preventing wound infections during the two World Wars. The sodium hypochlorite solutions widely used in the hospitals, particularly against drug-resistant strains like Staphylococcus aureus, were not effective for environmental disinfection. Therefore, there has long been a lack of potent disinfectants for environmental use, especially in modern hospitals where drug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus contributes to numerous nosocomial infections that alcohol disinfection cannot address, thus necessitating new disinfectants. In the early 1980s, the newly established Disinfection Department of Beijing First Infectious Diseases Hospital accomplished the task. Under the support of the Beijing government and inspired by Dakin's solution, the department director, Yaoguang Jin, developed a sodium hypochlorite disinfectant called 84 Disinfectant of suitable concentration to address the then-epidemic of hepatitis in 1984. Drawing from foreign medical and public health research experiences, it was recognized that sodium hypochlorite of different concentrations has varying disinfection effects, a fact that only garnered attention from the international scientific community in the early 21st century. In 1988, when a hepatitis A outbreak occurred in Shanghai, 84 Disinfectant played a significant role in controlling the epidemic, thus gaining widespread attention. Consequently, many enterprises began producing 84 Disinfectant, and Beijing First Infectious Diseases Hospital also profited significantly. 84 Disinfectant has become a well-known and widely-used biotech produce in and out of Chinese hospitals.

Today, deafness at birth is still widely perceived as a congenital disorder in Chinese society, and it is believed to be cured by the development of gene therapy. Concerned about the origin of this ableist comprehension of deafness in socialist China, this chapter explores the dynamics of deaf cure between the 1950s and 1970s.


While the Western biomedical knowledge of deaf cure was sporadically introduced into China before 1949, the communist government first made comprehensive attempts to translate the Soviet Union's medical knowledge in the 1950s. The progress in treating deafness was interpreted as a socialist miracle in the 1950s. In correspondence with Chairman Mao's advocacy for Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and its pharmacy in the late 1950s, acupuncture and its application in deaf cure gradually drew attention from physicians and deaf educators. They collaborated on experimenting with treating deafness, which was viewed as proof of TCM's legitimacy. During the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), the development of acupuncture in deaf cure was further endowed with ideological implications. The acupuncture in treating deafness was further enhanced and entwined with the social Maoist miracle of "breaking off the forbidden zone," while proving a myth later on.


Through the lens of the trajectory of deaf cure, this chapter contends for the interference of ideological concerns with medicine in socialist China.