清末广东善堂的医疗救济活动

清末是广东疫症爆发流行高峰期,同时也是民间慈善事业蓬勃发展期。宣统元年的社团档案资料显示,广东善堂的医疗救济活动十分活跃,救济方式灵活,受惠面广,规模可观。其中一些行为的意义已经超出单纯慈善救济范围。诸善堂人士对构筑本土社会最基本的人道关怀和医疗救助机制的思考,以及卓有成效的实践,对于维持地方社会的安定和谐,对于民国时期广东社会医疗公益意识的培育和公共卫生医疗体制的建立,对于广东中医在社会历史转型期的生存以及地方医学的发展,都有不容忽视的影响。

Medical and relieving activities initiated by Guangdong Charity Organizations in the late Qing Dynasty

The late Qing Dynasty had witnessed the peak of epidemic outbreak in the southern part of China. However, that is also the time when the non-governmental charity activities in Guangdong grew into prosperity. As is shown in the 1909 archives of China's association activities, Guangdong charity organizations at the time played an active role in medical and relieving activities, by using flexible and various means of relief with extensive beneficiaries. Some of those medical activities are beyond the category of mere charity relief. The ideology advocated by the founders and the practitioners of such charity organizations constructed the most fundamental local humanity relief and health care system, as well as their painstaking efforts in bringing these ideas into reality, have contributed significantly to the local stability and harmony of the society, to the cultivation of public welfare awareness in the social and medical sectors of modern Guangdong society, and to the development of Guangdong's public sanitary system. Moreover, they have brought noteworthy influence on the continuation of traditional Chinese medicine and the advancement of the local regional medical studies.