Blood, Soy Milk, and Vitality: The Wartime Origins of Blood Banking in China, 1943–45

Abstract

This article examines the multiple meanings of blood transfusion and banking in modern China through the history of the first Chinese blood bank, established by the Overseas Chinese in 1943 to solicit blood for the war effort. Through investigating the attitudes of Chinese soldiers and civilians toward the blood bank, this article argues for the multiplicity of motivations underpinning society's attitudes toward blood banking and donation. Cultural notions of blood were an important but not the sole factor in their consideration. Ideas of nationalism and altruism played a role too. What eventually turned out to be most effective for most donors was the promise of eggs and soy milk for blood. Its economic value in the context of wartime scarcity was enough for many to abandon opposition to blood banking. By drawing attention to socioeconomic concerns in biomedical practices, this article provides an alternative examination of blood banking in modern societies.

Film and the Chinese Medical Humanities

“…After the post-Maoist 'reform and opening' policies in the late 1970s unraveled the commune system underlying the rural healthcare system, the state had to develop new ways to generate revenue for rural healthcare. Building on the blood donation systems established during the Second Sino-Japanese War in Southwest China (Soon 2016) and since the 1950s in Henan province, state and health officials sought to deal with their financial shortfall in the 1990s by encouraging poor villagers to sell their blood and plasma for profit (Hayes 2005: 14;Jun 2011: 78). The local Henan government developed what they called a 'blood economy' (xuejiang jingji 血浆 经济) in order to 'shake off poverty and attain prosperity' (tuopin zhifu 脱贫致富) and so 'make people rich and the nation strong' (minfu guoqiang 民富国强) with minimum state investment or infrastructure required (Chan 2016: 189).…”

Danger in the Air: Tuberculosis Control and BCG Vaccination in the Republic of China, 1930–1949

“…Recent scholarship has shown that the Second Sino-Japanese War was a key period for medicine in China. Especially after the Nationalist government-and with it a host of medical administrators, physicians, and researchers-relocated to southwest China to make its headquarters at Chongqing, new institutions were built, expertise in Western and Chinese medicine was remade, and groups like women and the overseas Chinese became prominent actors in spheres of medicine and public health (Watt 2014;Barnes 2018;Soon 2016).…”