Villagers picking up snails with chopsticks, unruly wards where patients drank and gambled, temples repurposed as hospitals: these are the details, borne of meticulous archival research, that make Miriam Gross's work Farewell to the God of Plague not only a substantial contribution to modern Chinese history but also a genuine pleasure to read. This groundbreaking history of antischistosomiasis campaigns in the People's Republic of China from the 1950s to the 1970s is a must-read for students of governance and mass campaigns during the Maoist period, as well as anyone interested in the history of public health in China and other rural settings. Schistosomiasis, or snail fever, a parasitic disease carried by snails, was a major problem for public health in rural China during the twentieth century.
Gross's refreshingly lucid writing presents a comprehensive and accessible account of the campaigns. Gross draws upon extensive and meticulous archival research to show that the Maoist health model, which became enshrined in Western discourses of global health in the later twentieth century, was very different from the set of practices that actually made antischistosomiasis campaigns successful. Snail fever was not eradicated in 1958, as is commonly believed, and prevention work—far from the spectacular success that government and popular accounts suggest it was—actually largely failed. The crucial moment in controlling the disease in China, Gross reveals, was the onset of the Cultural Revolution, when mass movements resulted in the successful large-scale extermination of snails and an effective treatment campaign healed millions of schistosomiasis patients.
