[Medical and relieving activities initiated by Guangdong Charity Organizations in the late Qing Dynasty].

The late Qing Dynasty had witnessed the peak of epidemic outbreak in the southern part of China. However, that is also the time when the non-governmental charity activities in Guangdong grew into prosperity. As is shown in the 1909 archives of China's association activities, Guangdong charity organizations at the time played an active role in medical and relieving activities, by using flexible and various means of relief with extensive beneficiaries. Some of those medical activities are beyond the category of mere charity relief. The ideology advocated by the founders and the practitioners of such charity organizations constructed the most fundamental local humanity relief and health care system, as well as their painstaking efforts in bringing these ideas into reality, have contributed significantly to the local stability and harmony of the society, to the cultivation of public welfare awareness in the social and medical sectors of modern Guangdong society, and to the development of Guangdong's public sanitary system. Moreover, they have brought noteworthy influence on the continuation of traditional Chinese medicine and the advancement of the local regional medical studies.