Prof. Sean Hsiang-lin Lei Awarded the 2016 William H. Welch Medal from the American Association for the History of Medicine

The Foundation is pleased to announce that Prof. Sean Hsiang-lin Lei’s pioneering study entitled Neither Donkey nor Horse: Medicine in the Struggle Over China’s Modernity (University of Chicago Press, 2014) has been awarded the 2016 William H. Welch Medal from the American Association for the History of Medicine. Neither Donkey nor Horse, a major contribution to the history of science and global health, tells the story of how Chinese medicine was transformed from the antithesis of modernity in the early twentieth century into a potent symbol of and vehicle for China’s exploration of its own modernity half a century later.

The William H. Welch Medal, named in honor of one of the major American figures in the history of medicine and public health, is awarded to one or more authors of a book (excluding edited volumes) of outstanding scholarly merit in the field of medical history published during the five calendar years preceding the award. The Medal was first presented in 1950 to Henry Sigerist.

Prof. Lei currently serves as Associate Research Fellow at the Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica. His monograph was supported in part by a Publication Subsidy awarded by the Foundation (SP001-D-13).