When new China was founded in 1949, there were only 10 psychiatric institutions in China, with 1100 beds and 60 psychiatrists. Dr Shen Yucun was sent to Moscow for advanced training in psychaitry soon after her graduation from the Medical School of Peking University. There she met Dr Qian Xinzhong, an old soldier of the "red army", and they married before she returned. Dr Qian was Vice-Minister of Health in the army and later became the Minister of Health. Dr Shen dedicated herself to psychiatry and began to translate Russian textbooks into Chinese but soon found that many Russian textbooks came from German literature. She decided to learn German and brought the updates to her colleagues. During the "honeymoon of Sino-Soviet Union", all theories from "corrupted Western countries", such as Freud's ideas, were criticized in China. Dr Shen challenged the popular theory about the etiology of mental disorders proposed by Russian psychiatrists about water intoxication as an important factor in many mental disorders. She believed that because chemical compounds like chlorpromazine can effectively treat mental disorders, then mental disorders per se must have underlying neurobiochemical abnormalities. She set up the first neurobiochemical laboratory in China and recruited postgraduate students to conduct biochemical research.
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