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This article focuses on C. K. Yang of the University of Pittsburgh as the first U.S. sociologist to visit the People's Republic of China. After receiving an invitation on short notice, Yang spent roughly one month in China during last October-November 1971. During this period he returned to a number of places he had known prior to the revolution. His trip took him to six cities and two communes. Because Yang was afforded this unique opportunity to compare the present with the past, he was asked to respond to several queries for the American Sociological Association (ASA) members at large. He is presently writing at greater length on the topic, though he notes that his role was that of the tourist-sociologist rather than sociological researcher. Yang said what impressed him most deeply was the information gap between what he saw in China and the China depicted in Western literature in general, including partly his own writings on communist China during the past twenty years. The inaccurate and in some cases unrealistic impression on China poses a serious problem for educators who have a responsibility to inform the U.S. public, most especially the younger generation.

Academic sociology has vanished in the Peoples Republic of China since 1952, while it has been growing in all other nations, capitalist or socialist. This perplexing phenomenon calls for an explanation. The view advanced here is that a nameless sociology has not only remained quite alive in China today, but has also become the intellectual property of the people. Evidences in support of this view will be shown in the present article, which attempts a general review of the development of sociology in China from its beginning to the present time. The review will deal with the emergence of a Chinese sociology, critical comments on Western sociology during the anti-sociology campaign in 1957, sociological elements in Mao Tse-tungs writing and the rise of the "mass sociology." The early form of sociology as represented by the works of its founding fathers made its debut in China in 1903 when Yen Fu, an articulate interpreter of Western classics, published his translation of the book "Principles of Sociology." In the academic world, departments of sociology first appeared at St. John's University in Shanghai in 1914 and Yen-ching University in Peking in 1922 and later gained acceptance by several other major universities in Peking, Shanghai and Nanking.

The article presents a study to estimate a long-term crude birth rate of the Chinese agricultural population. Two groups of data have been utilized in pursuing this objective. One group consists of data on crop-yield density in China according to divisions by province and the other on crude birth rates for areas. From the data, the following conclusions can be drawn: a negative relationship holds between crop-yield density and the birth rate in China and area differences in birth rates are real and not due to errors in the data. It should be noted that the negative relationship observed refers to the group aspect of the provinces in their general association of above median crop-yield density with below median birth rate, and vice versa. The reference to group aspect should also be borne in mind in the interpretation of the area differences in birth rates. Different estimates of the birth rate were obtained from the age data for the two sexes. However, when a uniform level of mortality is assumed, the average birth rates calculated for either sex on the basis of age data from certain groups of surveys are not far apart.

The article focuses on the demographic significance of organized population transfers in communist China. Communist China has initiated and implemented a large number of policy decisions relating to population. Population growth aside, moreover, decisions must be and have been taken with respect to the ways in which the existing population of 600 million may be accommodated, fed and gainfully employed. Of obvious importance in the context of the sustenance of existing population is agricultural expansion which, in China, as in many emerging nations, has also been called upon to sustain industrialization. The beginning of the post-1949 population policy in China, in fact, had much to do with the spontaneous or blind out-migration from rural areas to cities which came to official notice some time in 1952. The official approach to the population problem was in terms of better organization and effective employment of rural manpower, and is clearly institutional. Innumerable factors help to shape the making of a nation's population policy.

Presents a historical overview of communal medical care. Medical care in ancient Assyria and Babylonia; Medical facilities established in ancient Ceylon; Clinics for the sick established in ancient and middle age China; History of medicine in ancient Egypt.