This book discusses the history of conflict between Chinese and Western medicine, and reflects on historical aspect of China's social change, and shows the complex interactive relationship between modern political evolution and traditional medical factors.

This book explores the long history of how Chinese people have been observed, transformed and treated as "patients" in modern times since the late Qing Dynasty. The title of "sick man in East Asia" is not only a metaphor of Chinese being bullied, but also a driving force for their own nationalistic social change. In this sense, "treatment" is not only a simple medical process, but also the focus of political and social system reform. Individual treatment behavior has become an integral part of the group political movement. By examining the history of the conflict between Chinese and Western medicine, this book reproduces the images of missionaries, midwives, sitting doctors, doctors and practitioners, barefoot doctors, politicians and social reformers of Western medicine, reflects another historical aspect of China's social change, and shows the complex interactive game relationship between modern political evolution and traditional medical factors.