In recent years a number of visitors to China have remarked on the rather surprising preservation and even revival of the country's ancient native medical tradition. To Westerners, so accustomed to associating modern medicine with progress and scientific advance, the continued existence of this obviously prescientific art has been one of the more curious anachronisms in the new society. Moreover, for a revolutionary government so firmly committed to science and modernisation, this support and encouragement of traditional medicine has seemed paradoxical indeed.

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Students of modernization commonly assume that, whatever else from the West may be rejected or modified to fit particular cultural and political preferences, science and technology are essential for any conscious effort to transform a traditional society. Indeed, despite the Western origins of modern science, would-be modernizers in Asia and Africa can reasonably claim that science is now universal. The degree to which it is possessed and practiced in various countries may differ, but in principle the spirit, methodology, and fruits of modern science are cosmopolitan, not bound to any particular culture. They are the legitimate property of all men aspiring to be modern. And from Tokyo to Nairobi all such men have passionately sought to possess them.

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