Mao's Bestiary: Medicinal Animals and Modern China

Experimental Futures

by Liz P. Y. Chee

Controversy over the medicinal uses of wild animals in China has erupted around the ethics and efficacy of animal-based drugs, the devastating effect of animal farming on wildlife conservation, and the propensity of these practices to foster zoonotic diseases. In Mao's Bestiary , Liz P. Y. Chee traces the history of the use of medicinal animals in modern China. While animal parts and tissue have been used in Chinese medicine for centuries, Chee demonstrates that the early Communist state expanded and systematized their production and use to compensate for drug shortages, generate foreign investment in high-end animal medicines, and facilitate an ideological shift toward legitimating folk medicines. Among other topics, Chee investigates the craze for chicken blood therapy during the Cultural Revolution, the origins of deer antler farming under Mao and bear bile farming under Deng, and the crucial influence of the Soviet Union and North Korea on Chinese zootherapies. In the process, Chee shows Chinese medicine to be a realm of change rather than a timeless tradition, a hopeful conclusion given current efforts to reform its use of animals.

Genres: China, History, Animals

288 pages, Paperback

Published May 14, 2021

Reviews

[Cecilia]

Really good

[Melanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a social history of Chinese materia medica. This book changes what you think about Chinese medicine narrowly focusing on the production of animal-based Chinese medicine. Rather than what we thought of ancient "tradition," the author argues that much of the demand and perception of animal tissue medicine (horn, blood, etc.) was developed during the Mao period. She argues, based on extensive historical documents in Chinese, that the production and consumer market for animal tissue product is an outcome of a state initiative to develop its own pharmaceutical industry. The state during the Great Leap period wanted to compete against Britain (then the largest exporter of medicines) and wean China itself from medicine it could not afford to import by developing local medications. This process is what she describes as the "scientization" or industrialisation of what were considered folk medicine. What happened was that animal tissue came under the scrutiny of the laboratory and so we see the mix of the Western-based approach using local knowledge. This push has since created an appetite for animal-tissue as curative goods for the sick and as health supplements for the healthy.

The other argument by the author is that the use of animal products were not necessarily solely from ancient records. Instead, much of the contemporary appetite for animal products revolving around antlers and bear bile predominantly come from the Soviet Union, North Korea, and Japan. This shared tradition and need to exploit local fauna influenced the further investigation of the medicinal uses of these animals in China.

What does this all mean? Demand and consumption was not "timeless" but a modern invention. This means that these appetites could be curbed and behaviour changed just like it was developed. This book will benefit those who are especially in the animal welfare, environmental protection, and animal rights. Those who want to learn more about Chinese medicine will come to understand the history of the drugs. One book club member criticised that one weakness of the book is that "Chinese medicine" separated into drugs and other practices fails to comprehend the totality of the uses of these materia medica. However, in doing so, the author successfully keeps the focus of her research and results into an already complicated socio-political field of drug production in China.

The book is accessible to the general reader. She has chapter summaries and conclusion so if you want to skip around but want to get the gist, you can quickly go there to review. The chapters just dive much deeper into a topic - such as Sovient experimentation, for instance. As a reader, you will find it harrowing and saddening to know that a company in China is holding an estimated 400 bears to harvest bile. If you've seen those videos of caged bears, it is a memory that will sear into your mind. A very painful process that may or may not have efficacy. Her story about the Vietnamese bears made my stomach churn.

What I want to see next is the supply chain of animal tissue going into China. She touches upon the slaughter of endangered animals elsewhere all to export it to China. It is a ground zero for all types of animal tissue that is all under experimentation. There is no exception. Even the pangolin who has been excluded for COVID reasons but still in use. If you are looking for an argument for the origin of COVID in the labs of China, this book gives you an idea of how and why that might happen. (although she made no mention of it, it is not too far off.)

[LaanSiBB]

Other than political medicine influenced by decoloniality or 100 years of shame (see Medicine and Empire: 1600-1960), the book offers an intriguing lens to fictional medical economy, where CTM merchants are forced to use all parts of the animals that generate new demand. I'm also interested in the development of clinical chemistry that busts the myth of some animal medicine. Overall it provides a good lens on how easy is it to invent history given the right condition, and sustain it through economic habits, behavioral economy should include this book on their list to consider culture under provocative patriotism.

[Colin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really super interesting account of the history of Chinese fauna medicinals since the communist era. A very niche subject.

This took me almost three years to finish because grad school derailed my reading for pleasure but im so happy I got the chance to close this one out now that my brain feels normal again.