英文摘要 |
With the discovery of sea routes at the end of the fifteenth century, the trade era was opened in the sixteenth century, which not only created the flows of humans, animals and plants, and the movements of silver, but also caused the spread of diseases among different regions. Syphilis is considered as an exotic disease introduced by the Americas to Europe in the Age of Exploration and spread to the Orient with explorers and merchant fleets. It did not attract the attention of physicians until being introduced to China in the sixteenth century. By the twentieth century, with the turbulent situation in China, syphilis was considered as an alien threat by reformers of the status quo. They launched a series of speeches and campaigns on syphilis prevention and control, as one of the ways to “protect the race and strengthen the country.” This study uses newspapers and medical books in the early Republican period of China as the main reference data. Firstly, the author reviews the articles related to eugenics in newspapers and magazines in that period, to discuss how contemporary intellectuals viewed sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) infection and fertility issues. Secondly, the author discusses the content of syphilis prevention and treatment in China in the twentieth century under the atmosphere of “protecting the race and strengthening the country,” including how folk doctors and intellectuals called for the importance of STDs prevention and treatments for syphilis; the characteristics of syphilis drug advertisements in newspapers and magazines, and people’s views reflected on syphilis and syphilis-infected patients in newspapers and magazines. |