This article analyzes the factors behind the cooperation between secularism and religious expansion in the public domain, through the medical faculty of Université l’Aurore, which may help better understand the relationship between the medical practice and colonization.

From the perspective of social history of medicine and health, we intend to study 1) the different motivations behind the French government and the Catholic Church on Western medicine in China; 2) the orientation of the French medical knowledge system; 3) the work and effectiveness of the “medical evangelism” of Catholic Jesuits.

Numerous young Chinese doctors grew up in this cultural encounter, forming an emerging social stratum spontaneously. In fact, they became active disseminators of western culture, and further promoted the western medicine in China. The medical faculty of Université l’Aurore vividly reflects the close relationship between medicine and religious behaviors, imperialism expansion and China’s pursuit of modernization.

We also demonstrate the impact of modern medical education, an efficient instrument of civilization, on health care, political control and cultural discipline. Moreover, the entanglement and historical interaction of the underlying knowledge and power are exposed in detail. The primary objective of medicine rests with saving people’s lives while the ultimate goal of colonization lies in conquering other nations. Therefore, the phrase “colonial medicine” contains the conflict and contradiction inevitably. Western medicine undergoes great developments in China via the fast modernization of public health and the medical education. These achievements are regarded to justify the legitimacy and validity of colonization. Western medicine directly enters into Chinese daily life by taking care of the sick, thus strengthening colonization. This process, known as the construction of modernization in China, vividly demonstrates the connotative invasion, as well as the Foucault's biopower.