Associate Professor, Department of Medical Humanities & Institute for Women's History of Medicine, Korea University College of Medicine.
Uisahak. 2024 Aug;33(2):477-502. doi: 10.13081/kjmh.2024.33.477.
At the end of the nineteenth century, Hong Kong was in the midst of a malaria and plague epidemic which caused a fierce dispute within the medical community over disease theories and quarantine practices. However, the Hong Kong colonial authorities and medical community did not immediately accept the theory of etiology based on germ theory. Although germ theory was becoming scientifically established through research on plague and malaria in the 1890s, the Hong Kong colonial authorities and medical community did not immediately accept it. Patrick Manson (1844-1922) began studying tropical medicine based on germ theory by studying elephantiasis and malaria in Amoi and Hong Kong during the 1880s. However, he was unable to strongly advocate for a quarantine policy based on germ theory because the exact transmission routes of these diseases were not yet fully understood. Although the scientific community began to shift towards germ theory after the discovery of causative bacteria for diseases like malaria and plague in the 1880s and 1890s, many medical and colonial health officials in Hong Kong still held on to the quarantine policy based on miasma theory. However, a series of infectious diseases and destructive miasma theory-based quarantine measures were pushing Hong Kong society into chaos, and the existing quarantine measures was no longer sustainable. In the twentieth century, colonial authorities and medical community in Hong Kong adopted tropical medicine and quarantine measures based on germ theory as their prominent position. Despite the establishment of tropical disease theory based on germ theory, racial perceptions of disease did not change significantly. Instead, the theory of tropical medicine reinforced orientalist views of disease.
19 世纪末，香港正处于疟疾和瘟疫流行的时期，这在医学界内部引发了一场关于疾病理论和隔离实践的激烈争论。然而，香港殖民当局和医学界并没有立即接受基于细菌理论的病因理论。尽管细菌理论在 19 世纪 90 年代通过对鼠疫和疟疾的研究在科学上得到了确立，但香港殖民当局和医学界并没有立即接受它。帕特里克·曼森（1844-1922）在 19 世纪 80 年代在澳门和香港研究象皮病和疟疾的基础上，开始基于细菌理论研究热带医学。然而，他无法强烈主张基于细菌理论的隔离政策，因为这些疾病的确切传播途径尚未完全了解。尽管在 19 世纪 80 年代和 90 年代发现了疟疾和鼠疫等疾病的致病细菌后，科学界开始转向细菌理论，但香港的许多医学和殖民卫生官员仍然坚持基于瘴气理论的隔离政策。然而，一系列传染病和基于瘴气理论的破坏性隔离措施使香港社会陷入混乱，现有的隔离措施已不再可持续。在 20 世纪，香港的殖民当局和医学界采用了基于细菌理论的热带医学和隔离措施作为其突出地位。尽管基于细菌理论的热带疾病理论已经确立，但人们对疾病的种族观念并没有发生显著变化。相反，热带医学理论强化了对疾病的东方主义观点。
