Transforming Medical Paradigms in 1950s Taiwan

Abstract

During the early Cold War period, medical reconstruction accelerated in Taiwan with the valuable support of the American medical profession. A common interpretation of this medical reconstruction focused on either the Japanese colonial legacy or the American heritage from China. Both arguments, however, oversimplify the complications inherent in transforming Japanese colonial medicine to meet American criteria of medical service in early Cold War Taiwan. This article explores the confrontation and conflict that made controversial the transition from Japanese colonial medicine to American standard medicine. This review of the history of the changing medical care system in Taiwan identifies a gap between the end of formal colonialism and an invisible colonialism. A new form of colonial medicine in Taiwan unveiled the current global configuration of power and culture during the Cold War in East Asia that was both similar to and different from the historical or imperial-colonial paradigm. Finally, the article touches on some thoughts on new forms of colonial medicine during the Cold War in East Asia. Keywords TaiwanÁmedical professionÁtransforming paradigmÁ subimperialismÁinvisible empire Scholarship on Taiwan history generally considers the year 1949 as either the beginning or the end of an era. This perspective is also applied to the understanding of the medical profession and practices in Taiwan. While the Japanese medical profession was most commonly associated with its colonial influence in Taiwan from 1895 to 1945, medicine in post-WWII Taiwan soon adopted certain aspects of American medicine from the time of the retreat of the Republic of China to Taiwan in 1949, resulting in the creation of a hybrid model of medical service in contemporary Taiwan. Under this system, the professional criteria of Japanese colonial medicine guided generations of medical practitioners in the colonial period and later, who, to some scholars, became