Rabbit Spleen and Medicinal Herbs: Animal Infectious Diseases, Grassroots Communes, and the State in Maoist China

summary:

This article explores how Mao-era China responded to major epizootic and zoonotic diseases. It foregrounds a series of patterns in fighting contagious animal diseases—lockdowns, quarantines, disinfection, mass animal vaccination, mass education, and prioritizing the treatment of infected animals over mass culling—which were together called the Comprehensive Prevention and Treatment (CPT). Shedding light on this understudied topic in the fields of the history of medicine and of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the author argues that it was not the central or provincial governments but rather local communes that led the effort to protect livestock from animal infectious diseases. This article critically demonstrates how the story of the CPT highlights the resilience of communal actors as well as the possibilities and limitations of the Maoist ideal of self-reliance.