This dissertation situates general theoretical concerns about medicine and society in a specific life history study of a famous Chinese doctor, Ren Yingqiu (1914–1984). Ren struggled all his life to make Chinese medicine a legitimate science, while trying to carry forward its historical philosophical legacy at the same time. Trained in the Confucian literati tradition and through apprenticeship to a village doctor, Ren Yingqiu nonetheless actively participated through writing, teaching, and publishing in various representations of Chinese medicine, which are at the heart of Chinese medical modernity. Based on a combination of multi-sited fieldwork and archival research in China, this study seeks to advance a more nuanced understanding of the social history of Chinese medicine through collective memories of Dr. Ren Yingqiu and his generation of doctors. “Historical problem” emerges as a key term in this study. I use it to show how Chinese medical doctors interpret the politics of socialism and scientism, associated political predicaments, and cultural struggles in the continuing practice of Chinese medicine. Radical social change in China and increasingly global recognition are two overlapping conditions under which the culture, practice, and representations of Chinese medicine have been reconsidered and debated. While presenting Ren Yingqiu's life from a number of points of view, I nevertheless emphasize that Chinese medical modes of writing are especially central. Writing, such as writing calligraphy and herbal prescriptions, which has been widely appreciated and practiced, constitutes an immanent theory of self and group identity for Chinese medicine doctors. Ren Yingqiu's life as a modern scholar doctor reflects these complicated transformation processes in Chinese medical modernity.
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