Science, Public Health and the State in Modern Asia [Paperback]

This book examines the encounter between western and Asian models of public health and medicine in a range of East and Southeast Asian countries over the course of the twentieth century until now. It discusses the transfer of scientific knowledge of medicine and public health approaches from Europe and the United States to several Asian countries  Singapore, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Japan, Taiwan, and China  and local interactions with, and transformations of, these public health models and approaches from the nineteenth century to the 1950s. Taking a critical look at assumptions about the objectiveness of science, the book highlights the use of scientific knowledge for political control, cultural manipulation, social transformation and economic needs. It rigorously and systematically investigates the historical developments of public health concepts, policies, institutions, and how these practices changed from colonial, to post-colonial and into the present day.

1. Introduction - Liping Bu and Ka-che Yip  2. Science, Culture, and Disease Control in Colonial Hong Kong - Ka-che Yip  3. Public Health in Prewar Singapore: The Development of Hospital Services and Medical Education - Law Yuen Han  4. Hygiene and Decolonization: The Rockefeller Foundation and Indonesian Nationalism, 1933-1958 - Eric Andrew Stein  5. The Alma-Ata Declaration, Rockefeller Foundation and the Development of Primary Health Care in Sri Lanka: A Model for Health Promotion - Soma Hewa  6. Removing the Obstacles to Public Health Work : Rockefeller Initiatives in Public Health in China and Japan and its Effects, 1925-1950 - Darwin Stapleton  7. From Race Biology to Population Control: The Rockefeller Foundations Public Health Projects in Japan, 1920s-1950s - Aiko Takeuchi-Demirci  8. Beijing First HeallC$