{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,16]],"date-time":"2026-10-16T11:52:58Z","timestamp":1792151578559,"version":"4.4.0"},"reference-count":36,"publisher":"Cambridge University Press (CUP)","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,16]],"date-time":"2026-10-16T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1792108800000},"content-version":"unspecified","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["cambridge.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Med. Hist."],"abstract":"<jats:title>Abstract<\/jats:title>\n                  <jats:p>Between 1938 and 1941, nearly 20,000 Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution arrived in wartime Shanghai, a city already destabilized by the Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945), mass displacement, and fragmented governance. Their arrival exposed the limits of Shanghai\u2019s overstretched public health system while also generating new forms of medical organisation, refugee self-governance, and intercultural collaboration. Drawing on archival records, refugee memoirs, wartime newspapers, and medical journals, this article reconstructs the development of an improvised yet integrated refugee healthcare infrastructure between 1939 and 1945. The article argues that refugee medicine in Shanghai evolved beyond emergency relief into a broader regime of care comprising hospitals, nutrition programmes, sanitation campaigns, disease surveillance, and work-relief initiatives. Far from being passive recipients of humanitarian aid, refugee physicians became central actors in constructing and administering this system. In conditions of institutional fragmentation and material scarcity, they adapted European medical knowledge to unfamiliar climatic and epidemiological environments, collaborated with Chinese practitioners and local institutions, and contributed to new forms of medical knowledge production. The Shanghai case complicates conventional narratives of humanitarian governance and colonial medicine. Rather than operating under a centralised state or colonial authority, refugee healthcare emerged through negotiations among municipal authorities, international aid organisations, occupying military force, and Jewish communities. Wartime Shanghai thus became not merely a \u2018port of last resort,\u2019 but a significant site of transnational medical production in which displacement reshaped both medical practice and the meaning of care.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1017\/mdh.2026.10094","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,16]],"date-time":"2026-10-16T11:15:49Z","timestamp":1792149349000},"page":"1-21","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1017\/policypage","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Improvised care: Jewish refugee medicine and public health in wartime Shanghai, 1938\u20131945"],"prefix":"10.1017","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-9044-1712","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Yun","family":"Xia","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/006teas31","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"publisher"}],"name":"Shanghai University"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0002-9283-3976","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Qin","family":"Cai","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"56","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,16]]},"reference":[{"key":"S0025727326100945_ref10","volume-title":"Survival in Shanghai: The Journals of Fred Marcus 1939\u201349","author":"Marcus","year":"2008"},{"key":"S0025727326100945_ref21","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1093\/past\/159.1.161"},{"key":"S0025727326100945_ref13","volume-title":"Hygienic Modernity: Meanings of Health and Disease in Treaty-Port China","author":"Rogaski","year":"2004"},{"key":"S0025727326100945_ref9","volume-title":"Once Upon a Time in Shanghai: A Jewish Women\u2019s Journey Through the 20th Century China","author":"Krasno","year":"2008"},{"key":"S0025727326100945_ref25","volume-title":"Captives of Empire: The Japanese Internment of Allied Civilians in China, 1941\u20131945","author":"Leck","year":"2006"},{"key":"S0025727326100945_ref32","volume-title":"Waike Zhengzong","author":"Kung","year":"1999"},{"key":"S0025727326100945_ref19","first-page":"66","volume-title":"Taowang yu zhengjiu, Erzhan zhong de Youtai nanmin yu Shanghai","author":"Jian","year":"2016"},{"key":"S0025727326100945_ref27","first-page":"158","volume-title":"Berlin, Shanghai, New York. My Family\u2019s Flight From Hitler","year":"2007"},{"key":"S0025727326100945_ref26","first-page":"101","volume-title":"From Exile to Washington: A Memoir of Leadership in the Twentieth Century","author":"Blumenthal","year":"2014"},{"key":"S0025727326100945_ref8","volume-title":"A Study of Jewish Refugees in China (1933\u20131945): History, Theories and the Chinese Pattern","author":"Guang","year":"2019"},{"key":"S0025727326100945_ref4","volume-title":"Japanese, Nazis and Jews: The Jewish Refugee Community of Shanghai, 1938\u20131945","author":"Kranzler","year":"1976"},{"key":"S0025727326100945_ref6","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1515\/9781644691328"},{"key":"S0025727326100945_ref7","volume-title":"Shanghai Sanctuary: Chinese and Japanese Policy Toward European Jewish Refugees During World War II","author":"Bei","year":"2016"},{"key":"S0025727326100945_ref31","first-page":"2","article-title":"Preface","volume":"1","author":"Reiss","year":"1940","journal-title":"Medizinische Monatshefte Shanghai"},{"key":"S0025727326100945_ref3","volume-title":"Port of Last Resort: The Diaspora Communities of Shanghai","author":"Ristaino","year":"2001"},{"key":"S0025727326100945_ref36","first-page":"7","article-title":"Prostata-Carcinom","volume":"1","year":"1941","journal-title":"Medizinische Monatshefte Shanghai"},{"key":"S0025727326100945_ref23","first-page":"168","article-title":"Race Against Time in Shanghai","volume":"33","author":"Margolis","year":"1944","journal-title":"Survey Graphic,"},{"key":"S0025727326100945_ref1","first-page":"277","volume-title":"Jewish Refugees in Shanghai 1933\u20131947: A Selection of Documents","author":"Eber","year":"2018"},{"key":"S0025727326100945_ref20","first-page":"51","article-title":"Flight to Shanghai, 1938\u20131940: The Larger Setting","author":"Altman","year":"2000","journal-title":"Yad Vashem Studies"},{"key":"S0025727326100945_ref28","first-page":"29","volume-title":"Survival in Shanghai: The Journals of Fred Marcus 1939\u201349","author":"Marcus","year":"2008"},{"key":"S0025727326100945_ref34","first-page":"21","article-title":"Exsiccoses","volume":"2","author":"Mosse","year":"1940","journal-title":"Medizinische Monatshefte Shanghai"},{"key":"S0025727326100945_ref11","volume-title":"Stateless in Shanghai","author":"Willens","year":"2010"},{"key":"S0025727326100945_ref14","volume-title":"The Making of Modern Chinese Medicine, 1850\u20131960","author":"Andrews","year":"2015"},{"key":"S0025727326100945_ref33","first-page":"1","article-title":"Dermatophytose der Haende und Fuesse","volume":"1","author":"Reiss","year":"1941","journal-title":"Medizinische Monatshefte Shanghai"},{"key":"S0025727326100945_ref35","first-page":"44","article-title":"Bericht ueber eine Anzahl von Dengue\u2013Fieber\u2013Erkrankungen","volume":"3","author":"Abisch","year":"1940","journal-title":"Medizinische Monatshefte Shanghai"},{"key":"S0025727326100945_ref16","first-page":"170","article-title":"Refugees \u2013 What\u2019s Wrong With History?","volume":"30","author":"Gatrell","year":"2017","journal-title":"Journal of Refugee Studies"},{"key":"S0025727326100945_ref24","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1097\/MC9.0000000000000017"},{"key":"S0025727326100945_ref17","first-page":"2","volume-title":"Shanghai Weisheng Zhi","year":"1998"},{"key":"S0025727326100945_ref5","volume-title":"Exil Shanghai 1938\u20131947: j\u00fcdisches Leben in der Emigration","author":"Armbr\u00fcster","year":"2000"},{"key":"S0025727326100945_ref29","first-page":"109","volume-title":"From Quiet Hope to Freedom: The Life Story of Ernest Urman and Judy Urman","author":"Urman","year":"2012"},{"key":"S0025727326100945_ref2","first-page":"3","volume-title":"In a Century of Jewish Life in Shanghai","year":"2020"},{"key":"S0025727326100945_ref22","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1515\/9780804798747"},{"key":"S0025727326100945_ref15","volume-title":"Neither Donkey nor Horse: Medicine in the Struggle Over China\u2019s Modernity","author":"Lei","year":"2016"},{"key":"S0025727326100945_ref30","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1057\/9781137006721"},{"key":"S0025727326100945_ref12","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/978-3-031-13761-7"},{"key":"S0025727326100945_ref18","volume-title":"Jews in China: Cultural Conversations, Changing Perceptions","author":"Eber","year":"2020"}],"container-title":["Medical History"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/services\/aop-cambridge-core\/content\/view\/S0025727326100945","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,16]],"date-time":"2026-10-16T11:15:53Z","timestamp":1792149353000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/product\/identifier\/S0025727326100945\/type\/journal_article"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,16]]},"references-count":36,"alternative-id":["S0025727326100945"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1017\/mdh.2026.10094","relation":{},"ISSN":["0025-7273","2048-8343"],"issn-type":[{"value":"0025-7273","type":"print"},{"value":"2048-8343","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,16]]},"assertion":[{"value":"\u00a9 The Author(s), 2026. Published by Cambridge University Press","name":"copyright","label":"Copyright","group":{"name":"copyright_and_licensing","label":"Copyright and Licensing"}},{"value":"This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.","name":"license","label":"License","group":{"name":"copyright_and_licensing","label":"Copyright and Licensing"}},{"value":"This content has been made available to all.","name":"free","label":"Free to read"}]}}