In just under two centuries, Hong Kong developed from a colonial outpost with no public health to speak of to one of the world's most long-lived and densely surveilled populations, and it did so while sustaining, often uneasily, two incompatible systems of medicine. This coexistence of Chinese and Western practice, neither willing to fully embrace the other, is what makes the city's medical past distinctive, an experiment in how incompatible understandings of the body, disease, and the state can create tensions, divides, but also opportunities for better healthcare.
This talk posits that history as a series of negotiations, between colonial authority and the Chinese community, biomedicine and tradition, individual liberty and collective protection. It traces the slow building of medical institutions and expertise, the professionalisation of nursing and, much later, of Chinese medicine. Despite a general epidemiological transition from the communicable diseases of geography and poverty to non-communicable diseases of lifestyle and longevity, medical progress has not always been linear, ruptured bythe plague crisis, wartime occupation, and more recent epidemic threats, such as SARS and Avian Influenza. Now we are confronted by an ageing society, antimicrobial resistance and smart medicine is being touted as a solution.
A recurring theme is that health events test not only laboratories and hospitals but the trust between a government and its people. This lecture offers a fresh vantage on how one small city's struggle to build a resilient and healthy population was representative of both local and transnational issues.
The Speaker
Dr. Ria Sinha is a Lecturer in the Medical Ethics and Humanities Unit at the University of Hong Kong where she coordinates History of Medicine teaching and learning. She trained in biology and parasitology at King’s College London and gained a PhD from Imperial College London. Her research and teaching at HKU have broadened into interdisciplinary research that considers the complex and dynamic sociocultural, ecological, historical, technological, and medico-scientific determinants of infectious disease emergence and management. She is currently completing a book on the history of malaria in Hong Kong.
PROGRAMME
Date: Tuesday, 11 August 2026
Time: 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm (Reception starts at 6:30 pm)
Time: 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm
(Reception starts at 6:30 pm)
Venue: Café 8, Roof, Hong Kong Maritime Museum, Pier 8, Central
Admission: $175 for members, $220 for guests /non-members
(Light refreshments are included in the admission fee)
Registration: Please email <membership@royalasiaticsociety.org.hk> and provide your membership number, if applicable, at the time of registration. Please kindly complete your registration by advance payment via Stripe's payment links below (using your Credit Card):
Members ($175):
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Details about the other payment option will be sent on registration. Upon receipt of payment, your registration will be confirmed by email. Registration will be closed at 12 noon on 10 August 2026.