Too Sick to Serve

The Politics of Illness in the Qing Civil Bureaucracy

Bibliographic Data

ID15027754
AuthorsHe Bian (0000-0001-6633-7384, corresponding author)
Year2012
Volume33
Issue2
Pages40-75
Publication date2012-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueLate imperial China (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0884-3236 • E-ISSN: 1086-3257
PublisherProject MUSE (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1353/late.2012.a494426
OpenAlexW59637407
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited16

Illness among officials posed perennial challenges to the local order of governance. During the Yongzheng reign (1723-35), a new set of policies emerged that enabled provincial officials to take a temporary sick leave and resume their careers after recovery. I use archival sources to examine how sick leave petitions were generated and handled in civil bureaucracy, and find that matters of personal health were treated increasingly as an impersonal routine. In coping with malingerers, the Qing state relied heavily on peer inspection rather than professional medical opinions. Certain types of illness were frequently reported, reflecting widespread health risks associated with official careers

Bureaucracy · Political science · Politics · Psychiatry · Reign · Sociology · Chinese history and philosophy · Historical Economic and Social Studies · Historical Psychiatry and Medical Practices · Law · Psychology · Public Administration

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