Legacies of Warlords and Empires

Abstract

This chapter argues that by 1937, a medical infrastructure of Western hospitals and clinics already existed in Yunnan—many of which promoted Jennerian vaccination against smallpox, if not immunization against other diseases. This organization had hybrid origins in the efforts of French, British, and Chinese empires during the early twentieth century, although the province remained on the fringes of the emergent Nationalist medical administration until the late 1930s. Wartime biomedical experts in Kunming relied upon this limited but significant infrastructure to build a new vaccination scheme that sought universal coverage of urban and rural populations for the first time. Ultimately, the politics of medicine—and especially vaccination against smallpox—in prewar Yunnan reflected power struggles between empires for influence in the region. Like the Russian, Japanese, and local forces that battled for controlling interests in Manchuria, French and British imperial powers in Yunnan competed with each other as they engaged with local warlords; sought to build economic and transportation networks in the region; and used medicine, especially epidemic control, as a means of establishing influence.