晚清上海藥商的廣告造假現象探析

Counterfeit Medicine Advertisements in Late Qing Shanghai

現今學界的廣告和醫療史研究成果非常豐富，但仍留有不少可以深入的空間。本文以晚清上海藥商的報刊廣告造假現象為主要研究對象，兼參考民國初期的藥商廣告資料，注重藥商廣告的製作過程、報刊廣告的讀者及廣告商品的消費者反應等重要環節，利用多種類型的資料揭示當時報章雜誌所登藥品廣告的出爐情形：它們由藥商專門僱傭文人精心製作而成，其中的消費者保證書，也出自精心的借名造假，不能代表藥品的真正作用和其實療效，更不能代表消費者的真實回應情況。儘管藥商的造假行為遭到時人的揭發與批評，但這些掛著洋牌的藥商大多沒有受到懲罰，其藥品及廣告依然受到消費者的歡迎，極大影響了近代中國的滋補文化與消費文化建構。

This article focuses on counterfeit Chinese medicine advertisements in Shanghai during the late Qing, and also consults related sources from the Republican period. I illustrate the procedures behind the creation of advertisements and the reactions of their readers and consumers, thereby revealing how these medicine advertisements were actually made. They were produced by professional writers hired by the pharmacies; the supposed endorsements provided in the advertisements were also elaborate frauds, which in fact could not guarantee cures, and were not even the real reactions of consumers. Although this counterfeiting was exposed and criticized by people at that time, most of the pharmacies were never penalized; their medicines and advertisements remained welcome in the media, and continued to wield an enormous influence on the construction of the culture of the tonic and consumption in modem China.