未讲述的“国际卫生组织起源”故事:救援协会、国际网络与个体角色

Rethinking the Origins of International Health Organizations: The Case of Lifesaving Societies

人们在叙述国际卫生组织的发展状况时,通常将关注点放在一些西方组织机构的建立上。本文旨在探究国际救援与康复协会的起源这一常被人们忽略的问题,以纠正学界的研究不平衡状态。这些协会从18世纪晚期开始激增,与此同时,一些最新的救援与康复技术在欧洲广泛传播。本文评价了国际救援与康复协会的观念、技术与组织结构在18世纪晚期19世纪早期从中国向欧洲传播后,在由欧洲、北美和其他广大地区组成的国际性救生与康复网络中所起到的作用。通过这一考察,本文阐明了隐含在国际卫生组织背后的各种观念。本文还考察了通过运用国际救援与康复协会早期的经验,个人如何在这类组织的起源与发展过程中发挥作用,并探察这种作用的两重特性——个人角色既促进又抑制这类协会的演进进程。

Traditional accounts of the evolution of international health organizations have had a tendency to focus on purportedly'Western'institutions.This article seeks to redress the balance by exploring often overlooked origins of international lifesaving and resuscitation societies which proliferated from the late eighteenth century onwards and which disseminated what in Europe were newly learned lifesaving and resuscitation techniques.The article evaluates the significance of the diffusion of ideas,techniques and structures from China to Europe in the origins of the international network of lifesaving and resuscitation societies in Europe,North America and beyond in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.In so doing,the article sheds light on the ideas lying behind international health organizations.It also evaluates using the experience of early international lifesaving and resuscitation societies the role of individuals in their origins and development,exploring how they both facilitated and inhibited their evolution.