Science
The correct line
Bernard Dixon
It falls to my lot to spend a good deal of time perusing scientific and medical journals. Some are dependably packed with goodies, every issue being full of astounding new facts. Others, just as predictably, are boring and tiresome, but must be consulted for their occasional gems.
One that never fails to intrigue is the Chinese Medical Journal. This month's issue is no exception, and though it contains nothing of outstanding research significance, Spectator readers may be interested to know what Chinese doctors and medical scientists read about in their spare moments. (Though the 'Western edition' is published almost entirely in English, its contents are very similar to the version circulated in Chinese in China.)
The first article this month is entitled 'Study Well the Theory of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.' It begins with a recent instruction
from Chairman Mao: "Why did Lenin speak of exercising dictatorship over the bourgeoisie? This question must be thoroughly understood. Lack of cllarity on this question will lead to revisionism. This should be made known to the whole nation." After expounding its message in more detail, the article ends by urging thorough study of the new teaching at all levels: "Leading cadres should be in the van in this study and organise it effectively among Party members, cadres, and the masses."
Ideology figures prominently in the second article too. Though titled 'Advance along the Widening Road pointed out by Chairman Mao,' this is nonetheless closer to what one might expect to find in a medical journal. The paper describes the achievements of 'barefoot doctors,' medical auxilliaries trained in China in vast numbers for work among peasants in the country's communes. The two situations differ vastly, but there is much that Britain and other Western countries could learn from this Chinese experiment in making medical services relevant and available to the community at large.
What jars on Western ears is the constant citation of instructions from on high, always in the most banal of terms. Chairman Mao's directives and inspiration are mentioned frequently, but only once is there an explicit dogmatic reference to the medical topic being considered. "Resolutely carrying out Chairman Mao's instruction 'In medical and health work, put the stress on the rural areas,' barefoot doctors work hard ...", we are told. There is much, much more about the importance of "the correct line," "growing militancy," and "profound proletarian feelings."
Five articles in the journal are devoted to clinical .and scientific research. They are set out, like their counterparts in the British Medical Journal, with tables, diagrams, references, and the dther conventional attributes of papers in any other scholarly periodical. But even here the discussion is interrupted from time to time by mention of the party line. Thus a survey of the incidence of oesophageal cancer refers back to the authors' inspiration -guided by Chairman Mao's great call," Among the 'straight,' clinical contributions to the Chinese Medical Journal, the replantation of severed fingers, arms, legs, and other appendages is a particularly common subject, Two of the five research papers in the current issue report recent successes of this sort, and there are twenty-five photographs of various bodily parts and their owners, before and after the operation. There is no doubt that the restoration of circulatory and nervous connections following such surgery is a major clinical problem, and one attracting the attention of research workers throughout the world. And severed limbs must be a Widespread nuisance in a predominantly agricultural economy. But my suspicion is that the remarkable prominence given to this subject in the Chinese Medical Journal probably also reflects pride in the spectacular, like that of our Western organ transplanters. Surely (we are expected to think) a country with excellent proletarian medical services and glamorous, sophisticated surgery must have -the correct line"?
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