Professor Liu Shiyong reported on his research titled "Communicating health among ports: Quarantine reporting networks in modern East Asia," which echoes the global COVID-19 pandemic that has ravaged the world for several years. Professor Liu wanted to discuss how Asian countries in the 19th century anticipated, prepared for, and dealt with the threat of diseases that might come from other countries.

Dr. Zhang Chunfang also focused on the theme of infectious diseases in her presentation titled "Research on the Disease Map of Modern East Asia: Centered on Infectious Diseases." She first mentioned the research of British physician John Snow (1813-1858) on cholera and the disease maps he used, as well as the reasons and purposes for creating disease maps. By marking the locations of cases on a map, doctors could trace the source of the disease and its transmission routes.

After the keynote speeches, participants enthusiastically discussed the fascinating presentations provided by both scholars. Professor Wang Xianqun from our institute expressed great interest in the disease map of the plague in Northeast China and raised a question about whether the points on the map seemed to follow the distribution of railroads, suggesting that the railroads might be the main transmission chain. He also inquired whether the absence of indicated rural areas truly meant there were no outbreaks. Dr. Zhang speculated that the communication methods at the time were limited, and during the epidemic, Wu Liande implemented a city lockdown policy, which could have led to a lack of information exchange, causing rural areas to be absent from the map. The keynote speech concluded amidst a lively discussion, and afterwards, scholars continued to passionately debate the topics left unfinished in the presentations.

(Source: Tsinghua History Communication, 202312)