China

CHINA. Area and population. The 18 main provinces of C. occupy an area of 4,053,900 km², Manchuria-940,000 km², Eastern Turkestan-1,425,000 km², Mongolia (Inner)*-500,000 km², Tibet-1,575,000 km². Data on the total population are extremely contradictory, with the difference in calculation by different authors reaching 100 million. There are no exact data in this area, since population accounting and civil registry records have not been conducted in C. until now. In 1919, the postal system in C. was reorganized, and according to the postal administration, which are considered the most accurate, in 1923 the population of all C. was calculated at 436,094,953 people. Horrific child mortality, incessant epidemics, ceaseless wars, the policy of the ruling classes and imperialist states reflected heavily on the population of C. Below are data on the population of China from 1792. The number of population Figure 1.

Figure 2. Erlenmeyer flask for air suction; d-candle, inverted bottom up in the upper vessel B; c-open end of the candle; d-pipette. Years 184a...... ....... 413.02L.000 In these figures their constant change is most characteristic, the rapid increase of population due to natural increase and the same rapid decrease due to terrible epidemics and the consequences of war. The population density of various provinces is extremely diverse. On average, 90 persons per 1 km² are counted. The maximum population density is in the central and northern provinces, along the Yangtze River and on the southern coast of China. All industry and the general economic life of the country are concentrated in the most populated provinces. Emigration is calculated at present at 9 million persons per year, mainly to South America, to Asia Minor, to Formosa, where the number of Chinese exceeds 2,250,000 persons. The study of public health in China is extremely hindered by the complete absence of accurate data on China for the past, as well as by the absence of any sanitary organization and the chaotic state of China's statehood due to the civil war. The few data that can be used and which are more or less accurate relate only to the 18 core Chinese provinces and to Manchuria. The history of China in recent years is a reflection of the acute class struggle within China, predatory foreign capitalism, which penetrated the country in the 40s of the 19th century, laid a heavy hand on it and fanned the civil war. The penetration of European medicine into China, introduced there by European Christian missionaries who came to pave the way for European and American imperialism, is one of the first stages of the introduction of this capital into China. General sanitary measures taken in the fight against epidemics are also primarily measures serving to protect Europe and America from the introduction of epidemic diseases there. In other words, these measures are reduced primarily to the protection of ports in the hands of European imperialists. Finally, the development of medical institutions and schools inside China itself is a reflection of the competition between various powers striving to seize China. Organization of public health. Until 1900, there was generally nothing similar to the organization of public health. In 1900, at the initiative of Yuan Shikai (after the Boxer Rebellion), it was prescribed to establish a sanitary department in every city with a population of over 10,000, subordinate to the Ministry of Internal Affairs. In some places departments were established, but in fact no sanitary measures were carried out. In 1910, after the plague epidemic in Manchuria, a plague control bureau was established in Peking, to which was entrusted the duty of developing measures against plague and supervision of quarantine. In 1916, the Peking government published a regulation on the fight against epidemics. In June 1918, directors of sanitary bureaus under the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the isolation hospital in Peking were entrusted to work out a plan for the National Epidemic Control Bureau. This bureau began its activity in 1919, replacing the Peking Central Bureau. In recent years its charter was changed several times, and finally it was included in the Maritime Customs Administration. At present (1930) it is headed by European-educated doctors and consists of two departments: one produces sera, vaccines and other bacteriological preparations, and the other takes preventive measures against epidemics. It also attempts to spread smallpox vaccination in the country. In 1921, a project for the establishment of a National Hygiene Bureau was developed. The project was approved, but the bureau was never created. As early as 1905, a Central Sanitary Bureau was created under the Ministry of Police in Peking, to which supervision of public health in China was entrusted. This bureau was inactive. Its budget was 7,000 dollars a month, entirely absorbed by the payment of salaries to officials, and no credit was allocated for hygiene. In some cities their own sanitary organizations were created. The situation was different in large ports, where foreign concessionaires created some organization on a scale ensuring ports from the penetration of epidemics and giving a cultural appearance to the city. The oldest organization exists in Canton (since 1918). In August 1926, a sanitary department was created under the Shanghai municipality and in November of the same year in Hankow. In Harbin the sanitary department was transferred to Soviet authorities, in connection with the USSR's renunciation of extraterritoriality and our recognition of China's sovereignty, into the hands of Chinese authorities. In Shanghai, a city with a population of over 1 million, the Department of Public Health is one of the seven departments of the Shanghai municipality (Directorate). It is divided into 3 sub-departments: 1) sanitary and street cleaning, demographic statistics; 2) supervision of medical practice and meat, supervision of infectious diseases and 3) control laboratory. At the head of each sub-department stand a director and two assistants. A consultative council of 12 members is attached to the Department of Public Health. Funds are provided by the municipality, the concession directorate and the port police. In 1927/28 the budget was 270,000 dollars. In Canton in 1926/27 the budget was 501,176 Mexican dollars, of which 201,280 dollars went to street cleaning, 225,280 dollars to hospitals and dispensaries and 74,296 dollars to current medical work. In 1925/26 the budget was only 325,000 dollars. In Tientsin in the same year the budget for public health was 78,000 dollars, and in Peiping (Peking) - about 40,000 dollars, including street cleaning. Shortly after the victory of the Nanking National Government, in October 1928, the National Ministry of Public Health was formed. In the first year alone, 700,000 dollars were allocated for its establishment and the development of a work plan. The Ministry of Public Health consists of the following departments: department of general administration, department of medical administration, department of health protection, department of epidemic control, statistical department. Provincial administrations and special municipal administrations were placed under the supervision of the ministry. A National Hygiene Laboratory was established for scientific research, analysis of medicines and products, study and development of pharmaceutical products and experiments with them. A National Epidemic Control Bureau was founded. Finally, jointly with the Ministry of Public Education, a National Midwifery Administration was created for the training of midwifery personnel and supervision of them. 30,000 dollars per year were allocated for this last organization. Public health in the army and navy does not enter the Chinese Ministry of Public Health. School hygiene also does not enter, the management of which remains in the hands of the Ministry of Public Education. Since Nanking became the capital of China, the government has been forced to pay attention to the organization of public health in it. According to a survey carried out in 1929, mortality in the city reached 30 per 1,000. In the city a sanitary bureau was created, committees for the fight against venereal diseases were organized, rules on the protection of maternity and childhood were published, kindergartens were founded. It is planned to organize a free smallpox vaccination point and a diphtheria vaccination point. Sanitary police and a detachment of social assistance sisters have also been organized to supervise the execution of sanitary orders. Special sanitary agents, as well as social assistance sisters, are entrusted to examine the sanitary condition of schools and factories and to monitor the execution of sanitary measures in them. The city has a special hospital for infectious diseases and summer barracks for cholera patients. The heads of public health in the city compiled sanitary statistical tables for the first time in China from October 1927 to February 1928. The number of doctors rose from 35 in 1927 to 64 in 1928. A three-year plan for sanitary organization has been worked out, which includes the construction of a hospital with 800 beds, the construction of an infectious disease hospital with 40 beds and the construction of a tuberculosis sanatorium for 800 patients. It is proposed to carry out a whole series of wide sanitary measures. Medical aid. In China one must first distinguish European medicine and Chinese medicine. Although the latter dates back to before 2500 BC, it has not actually evolved since then. Chinese doctors are essentially quacks treating patients with various herbs, ginseng root, antlers of young deer, etc. Such quacks are especially widespread in the center of the country and in Tibet, where European civilization has hardly penetrated yet. Since the 16th-17th centuries, sailors from Europe brought some medicines to China, for example quinine. In the early 19th century, doctors of the East India Company began to visit Southern China, mainly in Canton, where they treated Chinese. In 1835, Parker founded an ophthalmological hospital in Canton, and in 1838 the same place a medical missionary society. Some medical books were translated into Chinese. In 1870, Chinese were allowed to attend foreign medical schools. At the initiative of Li Hongzhang, a medical school for Chinese students was opened in Tientsin by Dr. McKenzie.

At present, a number of large cities have hospitals founded by European and American missionary organizations, and many of them have medical schools. In the early 1920s, about 300 such hospitals were counted. But the civil war forced many of them to close, and many others passed to Chinese authorities. According to 1927 data, the situation was as follows: in Southern and Western China, about 35 hospitals were functioning normally, 71 were functioning under Chinese control, and 55 were closed. In the northern provinces, 49 were functioning normally, 18 were under Chinese control, and 16 were closed. The number of purely Chinese hospitals is unknown. In missionary hospitals, there are European-educated doctors. In Chinese hospitals, nursing is poor, sanitation is lacking, and there are very few doctors, as they receive a beggar's wage. In these hospitals, patients are treated either in the Chinese manner or in the European manner, depending on the patient's wish. In the hospital, the patient's family and visitors are there almost all day. The total number of beds in all these hospitals is difficult to account for, but it does not exceed 40,000–50,000 for all of China, which is certainly absolutely insufficient. But even these hospitals are used mainly by the large and small bourgeoisie, with the exception of missionary hospitals, where treatment is free for all Chinese. During the war, the Chinese Red Cross was created, but its activity developed quite weakly. Medical aid is best and most long-established in the large cities of China, in which there are European-educated doctors, hospitals, and a certain semblance of sanitary organization, then in Manchuria, along the line of the South Manchurian Railway owned by the Japanese, and finally in the area of the Chinese Eastern Railway, which is under joint Soviet and Chinese management. But all existing organizations cover only a insignificant part of the population with medical aid. In Peking, 80% of patients have never seen a European-educated doctor. It is necessary to emphasize that all medical organizations created by foreigners were arranged to strengthen the influence of one or another country and had a philanthropic character, and the area of their action was small. In recent years, these organizations have also declined due to constant civil war. In Harbin, after the plague conference in 1911, the North Manchurian anti-plague organization was founded in 1912, in which Russian and Japanese doctors played the main role. It created 6 hospitals in the most important points. At some of these hospitals there are isolation points for plague and suspected plague patients, as well as laboratories. The main laboratory and isolation hospital are in Harbin. Through them passed several tens of thousands of patients, plague patients were isolated, and several tens of thousands of injections of anti-plague vaccine were made. The campaign for smallpox vaccination began in China in March 1929 at the instigation of the Ministry of Health. All the necessary amount of vaccine for vaccinations must be produced by the National Epidemic Prevention Bureau. Meanwhile, several private institutions are producing smallpox vaccine. But the majority of sera are obtained from Japan and America. Over 25 years, the Shanghai laboratory has produced 4,250,000 doses of smallpox lymph. Between 1903 and 1906, sanitary inspectors were introduced in Shanghai, isolation hospitals were organized, and disinfection chambers were set up. 5% of the population in Shanghai is vaccinated against smallpox every year. Morbidity. Sanitary statistics in China are absent, and civil registry acts in China do not yet exist. Accurate statistical data exist only in foreign concessions, in Canton, Shanghai, and other ports open to foreigners. Since these latter are interested in not allowing epidemic diseases to capture these ports and spread from there to other countries, sanitary supervision in them is carried out quite strictly. But in practice, this supervision is also difficult to implement, because next to the concessions there is a huge Chinese population, the composition of which constantly changes, which lives in appalling poverty and destitution, and in which all infectious diseases spread with extraordinary speed. Therefore, despite all measures taken for supervision, outbreaks of plague, cholera, smallpox, etc., are constantly observed in the ports. Infectious diseases. Plague has been known in China for a long time, as China (mainly Yunnan) is an endemic focus of plague. Descriptions of plague epidemics exist in Chinese authors from the 7th century AD (641–648). In addition, there is an endemic focus of plague in the northeastern part of Manchuria, where in 1910 a severe plague epidemic raged; in 1917, an epidemic of pneumonic plague appeared in Mongolia, from where it spread to a number of other provinces (Chahar, Chihli, Shandong, Anhui, and Jiangsu), causing over 13,000 deaths. In 1928, in one district, from September to November, 352 people fell ill with plague, and 340 died. Cholera is also known in China since time immemorial. From 1858 to 1867, cholera appeared annually, and then in 1887–88 the number of cholera victims was counted in the tens of millions. In the last 50 years, there have been 12 serious cholera epidemics in Shanghai. Usually cholera begins in the south and goes from there northward, spreading along the rivers. In large ports, cases of cholera are constantly observed, often turning into relatively small epidemics. Thus, in the summer of 1929, there was an outbreak of cholera in Canton. Registration of cholera cases in ports is carried out very strictly. Leprosy is extremely widespread, especially in the southern provinces. It is estimated that the total number of lepers in China is 1.5 million. Trachoma is the scourge of the population in China. According to Howard's calculations, in the southern and western parts of China it affects up to 20% of the population, and in northern China up to 40%. In Canton, 8% to 11% of children in schools are infected with trachoma, and among the city population, the percentage of patients with it is 15–20. About 50% of eye patients in the hospitals of Canton and Hong Kong are trachomatous. The same Howard calculates the number of trachomatous children in China at 30 million (25% of the total number of children under 15 years old). On some cotton factories, according to a conducted questionnaire, up to 90% of workers are ill with trachoma. Malaria is very widespread throughout China, with the exception of the high plateaus of Tibet and Mongolia. It is most widespread along the Yangtze River in Yunnan and Sichuan, and along the southern coast. There are no data on the number of patients. In northern China, three-day fever predominates, in the south, four-day fever. Among other infectious diseases, one should note the strong spread of dysentery (amoebic, especially in Yunnan), kala-azar, anthrax, parasitic diseases, diphtheria, and scarlet fever, the epidemics of which in 1910 and 1924 were of an extremely severe character. In the last 12 years, there have been a number of quite serious epidemics of encephalitis, apparently brought into China from Europe via Canton, although some authors consider that there is an endemic focus of it in Yunnan. Encephalitis is more widespread in northern China. In southern China, beriberi is strongly widespread. Tuberculosis in China is extremely widespread according to separate fragmentary data, especially in cities and on factories. Chronic mass underfeeding promotes its spread. Venereal diseases are strongly widespread, especially in cities. Syphilis has penetrated everywhere widely. In the 8 central provinces, on the island of Formosa, and in Hong Kong, 50–60% of the adult population is affected by venereal diseases (Wu Liande). In Hong Kong, syphilis was observed in 1.5–3.2% of all patients admitted to hospitals from 1912 to 1924. In one hospital in Shanghai, over the period from 1870 to 1925, on average 6.6% of all patient admissions were with syphilis. In 5 hospitals of northern Manchuria, the percentage of syphilitics among patients was 6.4. Data on the spread of syphilis in various groups of the population are given according to questionnaires from Peking and Shanghai hospitals. Patients Groups

Syphilis (in %) Soldiers and police.......... 35.0 Clerks........ 31.8 Unknown professions....... 21.1 Farmers.............. 15.3 Students................ 13.0 In Canton the number of prostitutes is 1 per 837 inhabitants of the city, in Shanghai-1 per 147, in Harbin-1 per 82. No preventive measures have been taken up to now. Among soldiers in Guangdong, where troop movements and civil war were especially strong, up to 22% of the military were sick with syphilis, which they spread among the civilian population. - Gastrointestinal diseases are extremely widespread everywhere on the ground of insufficient nutrition and dirt. The Chinese eats not when he wants, but when he can. The food of the main mass of the population is vegetarian, based on kaoliang (Chinese millet). Rice is too expensive for the majority of the population and is a delicacy for him. Meat is eaten only by wealthy people. The favorite meat of the Chinese is pork. Milk is almost never consumed as food. The food is fatty, since fat is considered its main quality. After days of famine, having seized food, the Chinese eats so much that he cannot move. This explains the enormous number of gastrointestinal diseases. Intestinal infections and in particular intestinal parasites are extremely easily transmitted due to the Chinese custom of fertilizing fields with human excrement. The Opium problem. Opium poisoning in China has such a wide significance that fighting it is one of the main tasks of the revival of China, but this struggle bumps against the politics of imperialist states interested in this mass poisoning of the Chinese people due to large profits from opium trade. One can say that in China opium has displaced alcohol, but it destroys the national health to an immeasurably greater degree. The use of opium in China is known since the 7th century AD. In the last 400 years it has been used in its modern form. It was also used in Chinese medicine. Opium smoking apparently became especially widespread after the prohibition of the import of tobacco from the West in the 17th century. In 1729 a decree was issued, according to which both smoking opium, and its sale, and opening smoking dens were prohibited. But foreigners, first Portuguese, then others, imported opium into China from India with great profit. Since 1775 the opium trade passed into the hands of the English, and since 1781-into the hands of the English East India Company. Since then up to our time the Chinese vainly fought by prohibiting the import of opium. In 1800 again the import and smoking of opium were prohibited. In 1828 opium was prohibited in northern China, but contraband of it went everywhere openly with the assistance of authorities, to whom it gave huge benefits. From 1828 to 1835 on average 18,835 bales were imported per year, and from 1835 to 1839-already 30,000 bales. In 1841 between England, importing opium, and China, prohibiting it, war broke out, ending in the defeat of China. The English annexed Hong Kong and achieved the opening of 5 ports for them. Opium was allowed to be imported, but taxed. At present the import is nominally prohibited, and customs constantly confiscate opium. But these very customs are in the hands of foreigners, and a huge amount of opium is imported into China. In recent years, morphine (in the form of injections) is increasingly replacing opium, imported in colossal quantities into China by European states, British possessions and Japan. One can judge the size of the import by the fact that in 1917 Japan imported more than 600,228 ounces of morphine; for the period from 1915 to 1920 it imported a total of 2,871,779 ounces (from 1898 to 1907 only 197,659 ounces, i.e. on average 19,766 ounces per year). According to the calculations of the League of Nations Opium Commission, the world's annual need for opium for medical purposes is estimated at 400 tons, and according to American data even less. Meanwhile the amount of opium preparations produced in Europe, for which there are exact data, exceeds 13,000 tons per year, in fact it is much greater. The main mass of this production is directed to China. And the Hague Conference of 1912 and the Geneva Convention of 1925 are practically mere hypocrisy, since England, Japan, and even Switzerland are too interested in the import of morphine and opium into China, especially England (India and Malay settlements). Besides the import of opium, it is cultivated everywhere in China itself. In 1906 its production there amounted to 22,000 tons. In 1906 the Chinese government adopted a decree, according to which the cultivation of opium in China should cease within a ten-year period. But this law violated the interests of producers too much, and therefore by the time the deadline of 1917 arrived it was nowhere actually carried out. At present almost in every province there is practically its own opium monopoly, organized by civil or military authorities, extracting huge profits from it, going to military purposes. The sale of opium is taxed everywhere. The harm caused by opium to China is great. It is considered that 10-20% of the male population, or 2.5% to 5% of the entire population, smokes opium. The number of drug users thus can be counted by a figure of over 20 million. In the Chinese hospital in Shanghai the number of fatal opium poisonings was in 1927 about 400, and in 1928-more than 700. In Yunnan in 6 hospitals every year more than 100 cases of death from opium are registered, the majority among women. Often small children swallow it. In 1924 in China was formed the National League for the Fight against Opium. But the only thing it can do-is appeal to the League of Nations to limit the import of opium, i.e. ask the merchant not to import the goods. The position of motherhood and childhood. At the basis of Chinese social life since time immemorial stood the family and strict subordination of children to parents. The position of women in the family was always subordinate: a daughter is subordinate to parents, a wife-to her husband, a widow-to her son. Polygamy is also allowed. Only in recent years, in connection with some industrialization of China and the revolutionary awakening of the masses, the question of the emancipation of women has arisen. In large cities, among the proletariat, women have already actually emancipated themselves; but in the villages the situation changes very slowly. Women are married off very early. A whole series of reasons (malnutrition, diseases, hard work during pregnancy) do not give a Chinese woman the opportunity to always bring her pregnancy to term, and the fertility of the Chinese family is not very great. Thus, according to the questionnaire of John Hammond and Han Liang-su in 1927 in Peiping, on 903 families examined by the authors, there were 3,390 pregnancies (3.7 per family). Of the 3,390 pregnancies, 266 ended in miscarriage, 26 children were born dead, 3,098 were born alive (3.4 per family). Of these, 725 died in the first days after birth. Up to the age of 5, 1,007 died (29.7%), up to the age of one year-12%. According to the researches of Chan and Wright, on 4,929 births, 2,745 died up to the age of 5 years (mortality 55.5%), of them up to the age of one year 864 (31.5%) (in Canton). In the same city among the petty bourgeoisie and workers the infant mortality was even higher and amounted to 69.5%. In Peiping infant mortality is somewhat lower; according to the questionnaire it amounted in recent years to 32.5%. The main causes of the unusually high infant mortality in China are purely social in nature and depend on malnutrition, impossible housing conditions of the working masses, dirt and poverty. There are very few definite data on the causes of infant mortality. According to Maxwell's observations in the province of Zhili, from 30% to 40% of newborns die of neonatal tetanus. This disease is purely domestic. Osteomalacia is extremely widespread among women. In recent years, only by European doctors working in China, more than 40,000 cases of this extremely rare disease in other countries of the world have been registered. According to Maxwell, in 1-3% of giving birth women osteomalacia is observed, and the causes of it are poverty, poor nutrition, poor lighting (Chinese houses are almost not lit inside). Modern Chinese legislation strictly punishes the production of abortion. Thus, Art. 322 of the Chinese criminal code punishes with imprisonment of the 5th degree or a fine not exceeding 100 dollars all those who persuade a woman to have an abortion. Art. 333 punishes with imprisonment of the 4th degree or hard labor those who have committed an abortion. Arts. 334 and 335 punish with several years of prison of the 3rd and 4th degree doctors, midwives and pharmacists who have committed an abortion. Finally, Art. 337 doubles the punishment in the case if the production of abortion was accompanied by disease or death of the woman. Protection of labor. China is primarily an agricultural country. In China 80% of the rural population. In 1924 in China officially there were about 3 million industrial workers; handicraft workers, rickshaws, servants, etc.-about 12 million people. In total, persons of hired labor (including farm workers) about 40 million people. The main industrial centers of China are Shanghai, Hankou, Wuchang, Canton, Chifu. Child labor is extremely widespread in industry, and there are no restrictions for it. In Shanghai, tens of thousands of children work on factories. The conditions of work are worst on silk and cotton factories. Mothers usually bring their babies to work and place them next to themselves on heaps of dirty cotton.

At Shanghai factories at present a woman earns about 50 kopecks a day, a child about 20 kopecks. The working day lasts not less than 12 hours without a day of rest in the week. After the strikes of 1926, workers in Shanghai managed to achieve a 10% increase in wages, the establishment of a 10-hour working day, freedom of assembly and strikes. - Under existing conditions, when on the one hand rural workers are exploited by landowners without any control, and the urban proletariat is exploited in industry based on foreigners and often located on the territory of foreign concessions, one can of course not speak of any labor protection. But in large cities, where the Chinese proletariat, driven to an absolutely desperate position in the work of foreign concessionaires, has put forward certain demands, there are beginnings of labor protection. Moreover, the concessionaires had to introduce certain protection rules, if only to avoid harming the quality of goods that had to compete with Japanese and earlier with English goods. In addition, the absence of sanitary rules was dangerous in the sense of the spread of epidemics, which could spread to the concessionaires themselves. The pressure of workers on one side, the necessary concessions of factory owners on the other — this is the basis of the beginnings of labor protection in China in recent years. Before the revolution in China there were generally no rules on labor protection, and the worker was in the literal sense of the word a slave of the factory owner. Labor protection in factories, mines, and trading enterprises under the Peking government depended on the Ministry of Agriculture and Trade. In the National Nanjing government this division was preserved, and questions of hygiene in the above-mentioned areas also remained with the Ministry of Agriculture and Trade. Even the Peking government published the first decree on labor protection on May 12, 1923. It concerned workers employed in mines. In 1923 the Peking government acceded to the international convention on the prohibition of white phosphorus for matches. The prohibition entered into force in 1925. - The Nanjing government, safeguarding the interests of the Chinese bourgeoisie, has so far created nothing decisive for improving the position of the working class. Only to attract the sympathies of the European bourgeoisie does it raise the question of fighting epidemics, in the reduction of which foreign concessionaires are also interested. Medical, education. So far in China there are no purely Chinese medical schools. All existing schools are founded by foreign missions, and teaching in them is conducted by foreign doctors or by Chinese who have received education abroad or in these schools. For doctors engaged in Chinese medicine, there are no schools. Such a doctor must have three generations of doctors in his family, study books on pulse and some medicines, Chinese medical gymnastics (the only rational thing in Chinese medicine), and pass an examination on a mannequin, on which he must be able to hit the needle into various points of the body. After this he opens a shop, often simply on the street, and for a few cents gives advice, pulls teeth, and this is often done simply with the hands. At present in China there are 9 medical schools belonging to foreign missions. In view of the fact that the preparation of Chinese students is absolutely insufficient, each medical school has a preparatory school, like a secondary school, where general education subjects and the language in which teaching is conducted in the medical school are studied. Usually in these preparatory schools the course is 5-6 years. In medical schools the course is 4-5 years. Many of the foreign schools are well equipped, for example the Peiping Medical College, founded in 1905 and since 1915 transferred to the control of the Rockefeller Mission. Of these 9 schools, only 4 have been functioning normally in the most recent time, 2 worked in the composition of several professors, and 3 were closed. In Peiping there is a Central Medical Bureau, which distributes subsidies to hospitals and medical schools, as well as gives subsidies to young doctors for scientific work and foreign trips. Funds for this are given mainly by the Rockefeller Mission. At all schools there is active indoctrination of students with the teaching of the Christian religion. All these schools are conduits of foreign influence. At the Peiping College there is a school for midwives with a fifteen-month course and a school for medical sisters. In the college the whole course is calculated for 4 years. To obtain the right to practice in ports (Shanghai, Canton, etc.), local practicing doctors have created special examination commissions. In 1928 the Sanitary Department of the Peiping Municipality published a decree on the compulsory registration of all European-educated doctors, both those who finished abroad and those who finished Chinese medical schools. But all these measures so far aim to limit access to the circle of practicing doctors. The majority of foreign doctors are united in an organization, which until 1915 was called the Medical Missionary Association, and since 1915 took the name of the Medical Association in China (The China Medical Association). It currently has about 600 members. This association publishes two medical journals in Shanghai, giving a large amount of material on the state of public health in China and on domestic diseases. In them scientific works of local doctors are also printed.