Introduction¹

“Atmospheric violence” (la “violence atmosphérique” in French), depicted by Frantz Fanon from his embodied experience in Algeria and Tunis (or broadly, the Global South), “is rendered sensible by the ways in which it ceaselessly produces and circulates evidence of its existence: material and sensorial traces that gesture toward but never fully depict.”² Fanon’s metaphor of colonial violence, indeed, could be substantiated by various historical details and cultural representations; but to consider it notably as a conceptual expression would be to sacrifice its concrete half, the underlying cognitive/perceptual/technological foundation that makes the metaphor understandable by referring the abstract idea to the sharing real-world knowledge, even the struggle. Taking this metaphorical expression literally also inspired us with a vivid pun of such remark; specifically speaking, “atmospheric violence” of (post-)colonialism could also be found in an originally technological (but later re-metaphorized) expression related to atmosphere and barometers. The circulated testimony - “Some people/The Chinese are like barometers” - coincidentally served as an indicator that visualized the violence of the Enlightenment hidden in the networking of scientific missionaries and “vulnerable” rhetoric.³ The key idea of this paper, therefore, is to trace both upstream and downstream of atmospheric epistemology from Victorian Europe to fin-de-siècle China and examine how the “atmospheric violence” unfolded through this case of diffused discourse.

“Certaines personnes sont de véritables baromètres”: barometers in (public) science

Barometers, indicators of the weight/pressure of the atmosphere, were widely circulated as “philosophical furniture” in the Age of Enlightenment and Victorian Era.⁴ This meteorological instrument, for one thing (philosphical[ly]), extended the capacity of mind/sense/organ for quantifying the perception and prediction of weather, mirroring the (potential) power of the Enlightenment over common sense and mysticism.⁵ In parallel with Daston’s narrative from the preternatural wonder to the “clarified/explained” one, “barometer,” etymologically, was a (mix-and-match) pun-based creation combining “baros” (weight) and “métron” (measure), experiencing the similar transition of thermometers from the theory of four elements to the physical-laden measurement.⁶ For another (“[as] furniture”), barometers, commonly afforded and found in polite circles, “literally brought [the weather forecast] indoors, domesticated as part of the quotidian routine of many households.”⁷ Facilitating the measurement (and regulation) of climate around, barometers were associated with the health (esp. domesticate physiology) and their cultural imagination of susceptibility, thus referring to the metaphor of vulnerability in both physical state and sympathetic feelings.⁸

Camille Flammarion, an astronomer and author of public science in fin-de-siècle France, contributed to the transnational flow of such atmospheric epistemology and took the frontiers of cutting edge science into the halls of general education.⁹ L’atmosphère: météorologie populaire, his work on popular meteorology with great reception, introduced the physical formation, chemical composition, and meteorological variation of atmosphere increasingly understood as a rational phenomena. In Chapter VI, he analyzed its physiological effect on respiration by synthesizing the knowledge framework above,

“... Do differences in degrees of atmospheric pressure, or, in other words, the daily oscillations and accidental variations of the barometer have any influence on the human body? Under what circumstances and through what symptoms does this influence manifest? It is certain that bodily functions operate with more energy when the barometer rises and atmospheric pressure is higher. It is understandable, indeed, that as external pressure increases, the resilience of membranous walls is favored by this excess pressure. On the contrary, if the barometer falls by a considerable amount, we experience a feeling of discomfort and fatigue, a tendency to rest; our fluids hold some gases in dissolution and tend to vaporize due to the body temperature. The slowing down of functions, which is the consequence of this disturbance, makes any kind of movement more difficult for us; and, when attributing the feeling produced in our own organs to the air around us, we tend to complain that the air is heavy, (in fact), it is precisely because it is too light. This is how the sky rules us, and how our physiological state of body and mind can almost always be translated into barometric figures…”¹⁰

Here, Flammarion explored individual feelings and reactions to atmospheric fluctuation. For example, the excessive pressure renders membranous walls more resilient, and our bodily functions operate with more energy; when the barometer falls by a considerable amount, our body temperature tends to cause our vital fluids to evaporate, and this disturbance slows down our bodily functions. Based on the physiological response to in/decreasing atmospheric level, he tentatively regarded barometers as the quantification of body state and its perpetual transition. This framework, quantifying body state by instruments, could be traced back to Santorio Santori’s design of weighing chair and even prefigure the epistemology hidden in today’s health tracker in Watch and Band.¹¹ Apart from standardizing the physical status of the atmosphere by attaching it to specific indexes within the symbolizing order, Flammarion’s work unexpectedly elevated the human body as the chief measure of the atmosphere, as much becomes clear in footnotes like,

“...We have all experienced the depression produced in our bodies/organisms by the sometimes considerable falling of the barometer. A more evident difference would be able to break delicate or weakened constitutions/bodies...Some people are truly like barometers. Those whose nerves are weakened or of a morbid sensitivity, and those who have undergone amputation, would feel barometric movements as accurately as the oscillating mercury column itself. Everyone could observe many examples of this type…”¹²

Since the environmental influence on the body was the consequence of various elements (“s’unissent d’ailleurs à l’action”) and the body tends toward homeostasis (“notre organisme”), those people who could evidently sense and react to the change of atmosphere would correspondingly have a delicate or weak constitution (“les constitutions délicates ou affaiblies”). In the same footnote, Flammarion listed the death of Prof. Cockburn and Cromwell as examples of his argument and, rhetorically, used it to exemplify the effects of atmosphere on the body, “Some people are (truly) like barometers” (“Certaines personnes sont de véritables baromètres”). Even when viewed from discourses which were popular at the time like sentimentalism, such sensitive feelings - of air changes, emotional experience, and moral concerns - contributed to rich conceptual discussions about a new concept: atmosphere. Descriptions of atmosphere’s effect on the body served as testimonies to its power. They also inherited from the scientific analogue the association with rationalized prediction (the symbolizing order) and the culture of vulnerability (the coordinating order) above, in an easily memorable form.

Nevertheless, Flammarion did not simply take the atmospheric susceptibility of the human as a static indicator, but also mobilized such physiological elements as a dynamic principle for leading a healthy life,

“... If, without prejudices and preconceived ideas, everyone could find that at a given time, his feeling would promptly recognize that, according to the height of the barometer, his functions perform with more vigor, his mind is better disposed, unrestrained, more lively, his study becomes easier, and his life would be fuller... However, we would say with Dr. Foissac that these rules are not applicable to all; and just as dryness or humidity, cold or heat, are favorable to some people while harmful to others, the differences in atmospheric pressure produce various effects, based on health status, temperaments, and habits…”¹³

Since this relationship manifested itself differently for different people, everyone should try to find a regular lifestyle for themselves. For generalizing the causal interaction depended on individual inclinations, Flammarion categorized two (ideal)types of atmospheric susceptibility,

“... We also see certain constitutions could avoid these delicate influences; for example, those tranquil people who feel and think as they digest, so that physical storms and moral accidents do not disturb or derail from their accustomed path, and whose life, confined within the realities of positivism, have no awareness of the deviations of imagination or the multiform nuances of sensitivity. The reflections above apply to the unfortunate (privileged?) natures, who would double the quantity of happiness and suffering by their way of feeling, apply these intelligent sensitivity to people with a slight thorn at the physical or moral level, to people who finally devote themselves to study and contemplation, anxious about the past, concerned about the future, more or less touched by the taedium vitae (an air of world-weariness), and penetrate their heart like the worm in the chalice of the flower or in the fruit ripened by summer…”¹⁴

Peaceful is the person who, therefore, would not be disturbed by the variation of atmosphere and could focus on their own labors and intellectual activities. Another is more sensitive and would be moved by their innate passion. Obviously, this dichotomy could be further located and reevaluated in the platonic framework of reason, passion, and desire. At least in his footnote of “popular meteorology,” Flammarion did not express a favorable or unfavorable judgment, but regarded it as “the unfortunate/privileged nature.” Personal susceptibility in varying degrees was used to describe variations within the adaptability and the kind of lifestyles deemed suitable to each person, not to define a normative standard. On the one hand, everyone has their own nature and holds the independent representative in relation to ideal type. On the other hand, both extremes, peaceful or passionate, are bracketed within a common spectrum, not as biased judgment but as friendly teasing (“natures malheureuses [privilégiées?]”), while the ethnic assessment tends to label and invent the tendentious statistical generalizations with cultural prejudice.¹⁵ In other words, Flammarion’s notion that the body provided a testimony on behalf of atmosphere - that “Some people are like barometers” - could serve as either a physiological or a characteristic summary of individuals, not for racial or moral evaluation, in his works on public science. Sharing the context of Hippocratic revival, the knowledge related to atmosphere and body state was not only discussed at the theoretical level, but also put into practice later on.¹⁶ Growing awareness of atmospheric elements, such as the artificial air produced by architecture and ventilation, led experts to blame architectural issues like frangible structure and insufficient airflow for a variety of health problems.¹⁷ The design of architecture and living space, with the development of ventilation, represented an effort to ameliorate the exposure and comfort of air, which, correspondingly, raised the emphasis of environmental medicine in minimizing the influence of atmospheric susceptibility.¹⁸ Therefore, Richard Wolfendale, receiving his medical training at the University of Edinburgh, encountered the academic heritage of popular meteorology with preliminary architecture at this commercial and cultural intersection.¹⁹

“The Chinese are like barometers”: barometers in “vulnerable” rhetoric

After receiving medical missionary training in Edinburgh, Wolfendale was sent to China in 1896. By contrast to earlier evangelization efforts that made liberal use of military violence, Wolfendale, affiliated with the London Missionary Society, mobilized scientific and medical methods to create an attractive and inclusive image.²⁰ While other missionaries introduced and translated scientific knowledge by books and journals, Wolfendale tried to convert local people to the western way of thinking through charity activities and medical “wonders,” both of which made use of the rhetoric of enlightenment to supplant the indigenous culture. That same kind of generalizing technical language fulfilled the role of a grand narrative, seemingly neglecting the specific and local intentions of the key actors involved. And indeed, for all the grandeur of Wolfendale’s rhetoric, his analysis proved to have real consequences on the ground in Chongqing.

With experiences gained from organizing in China, Wolfendale wrote an essay on “an” (exemplary) medical missionary hospital during his vacation in 1903 and summarized his architectural principles in two key ideas - economic prudence and cultural accommodation. Such principles called for the transplantation of “enlightened” medical space into late imperial society in China. No longer relying on imperial strategies defined by the strategic dichotomy between violent military and cultural intervention, Wolfendales’ new approach staged a choice between cultural transplant and accommodation.²¹ For example, the title used “an” not “the” mode of missionary hospital, since Wolfendale regarded his scenario modestly, not as the final scheme, but as a tentative inspiration for the later missionaries in China.²²

Generally speaking, the essay on missionary hospitals called for a “hybrid” design of architecture trying to cut excessive spending while also localizing the design of the hospital to meet local needs. Nevertheless, such “hybrid” rebuilding was limited to the style based on the previous architecture while the function or structure was fully regulated not by the indigenous practice but the foreign knowledge of ventilation and drainage intended to reshape the local landscape.²³ In other words, the indigenous elements of the hospital essentially disguised the inner framework of modernization. Practically and symbolically, Wolfendale’s biomedical designs penetrated and even marginalized the local medical tradition of TCM.²⁴

After introducing his medical cases and experience in Chongqing, Wolfendale summarized nine rules for further construction. While the other eight rules explained the finer points of urban planning and drainage, the eighth rule analyzed the condition of ventilation and took the “vulnerable” rhetoric of Chinese as the evidence of argument, “VIII. Make the wards light, airy, and well-ventilated, but not draughty. The Chinese are like barometers, and are susceptible to the least change of atmosphere.”²⁵

The design of ventilation and lighting in buildings was the key consideration in the Western style of hospital, when compared to Wolfendale’s portrayal of Chinese architecture as “uncomfortable.”²⁶ In detail, Wolfendale made a distinction between “well-ventilated” and “draughty” with the consideration of atmosphere. The former corresponded to the standard of ventilation and called for the free flow of air within each ward. The latter emphasized the importance of insulation since the patients would be more vulnerable and sensitive to the variation of atmosphere and temperature. Put more concisely, this distinction between ventilation and insulation, indeed, presented as the ideal translation of ventilation principles in Europe, viz., taking into account both the comfort air on free flow and stable temperature. Since its traditional building envelope was made of wooden vernacular dwellings and permits more natural or space-directed air flow than the mechanical controlled ventilation (or “rational hearth” in European design explained in Footnote 11), Chinese architecture was evaluated as “draughty” (airy but uninsulated) by Europeans like Wolfendale, In this framework, patients, or specifically building users of hospital, largely the local Chinese here, were unified and abstracted as the ideal or standard man, or Le Modulor in the occidental principles of architecture. The actual condition in Chongqing, therefore, was regarded as the deviation from the ideal scenario, which, obviously, ought to conform to the “universal” design.

If Wolfendale stopped here, this story could have been interpreted as the classic enlightenment tale involving the global diffusion of universal ideals, or at best, a cross-cultural encounter, depending on the depth of the narrator’s reflection on their own cultural chauvinism; and Chongqing, for this hospital and its patients, was a local and special case “discovered and rescued” by the universal mode and philanthropy. Nevertheless, it was not, since he did not ground the statement of why proper ventilation is of vital importance (the first sentence of Rule VIII) on the principle of architecture and the human need for ventilation (as discussed in Section 1) with further consideration of constitutional and physiological elements as sub-argument, but directly on the “atmospheric susceptibility” of Chinese patients/building users - “The Chinese are like barometers.” It is easy to notice that this testimony of atmosphere mirrors the previous one, “Some people are (truly) like barometers” (“Certaines personnes sont de véritables baromètres”), but with a shift in person (from “some people” to specific “the Chinese”). Returning to Camille Flammarion’s public science of atmosphere, the constructed image of Chinese here would be categorized as the second type, which was more sensitive and easily moved by the passion of nature. However, such vulnerability in the medical missionary context were different from the sympathetic feelings of polite circle above. The latter in Victorian and fin-de-siècle Europe would be categorized as the idiosyncratic tendencies of discrete individuals, rather than discrete populations, at the intellectual level, even the metaphor of “barometers” correspondingly referred to those with a vulnerability to extreme emotion. In contrast, Chinese people were labeled as “the absence of nerves” merely possessing “physical vitality,” in other words, having no access to human reason.²⁷ From this perspective, the representation of “barometers” served as the mechanical metaphor, visualizing and justifying the legitimacy of spiritual formation and “enlightenment,” since such imagination mocked Chinese people by comparing them to robotic life forms on the order of meteorological instruments, lacking of basic sentiments and the faculty to express them. And even for the corporeal side, the atmospheric susceptibility would be entangled with the “vulnerable” rhetoric of the Chinese “pathological body.”²⁸ This kind of barometric testimony continually jumped into the circulation of discourse and evidence, contributing to atmospheric violence of the Enlightenment. And the local case of Chongqing, unfortunately, was the gazed and deviated object in cultural production, further grounding the seemingly “universal” image portraying the vulnerability of all Chinese people (similar to the “looping effect” labeled by Ian Hacking in psychological/anthropological observation).²⁹

In fact, the key to the intractable problem lay in Wolfendale’s essay itself. At the beginning of his article, Wolfendale mentioned the concept of “fengshui,” literally wind and water, referring to the Chinese understanding of the world and the environment. For example, the abovementioned distinction between “well-ventilated” and “draughty” could be translated as the circulation of qi in both macro- and micro-systems of the universe, similar to the holism of environmental medicine, and the avoidance of “chuantang feng” (wind through the room that occurred the exposure/invasion of coldness). If he could take his inclusive attitude towards “one”, not the exclusive “the”, ideal mode of design symmetrically, the Chinese epistemology of “fengshui” would provide him and us with another possibility to understand and establish harmony with the atmosphere and architecture.³⁰ Nevertheless, he simply dismissed the indigenous tradition of architecture, or broadly, of living, by labeling it as the “fear of riots” and “idle rumour,” since he wrote this paper in 1903 during a vacation shortly after the Boxer Rebellion and had great passion for establishing missionary hospitals at the launching stage of the establishment career.³¹ Therefore, the Chinese understanding of atmosphere was underestimated as an anthropological or even a crude phenomenon to be adjusted in line with enlightened standards, not as a reciprocal cultural tradition in symmetrical dialogue. And the scientific missionary, despite tokens of sympathy and affectation, produced and circulated an atmosphere of violence.

Later, the circulated testimony of “barometers” was “internalized” by “westernized” elites and widely received by the public in China, as Frantz Fanon’s observation of hybridity portrayed in Peau Noire, Masques Blancs and Damnés de la terre. The infrastructure in modern China converged with the Western ventilation system, which seemed to be a predicated upon the widespread fear of the accumulation of poisonous wastes in the air.³² However, as Shigehisa Kuriyama suggested, such fear just visualized the “great forgetting” in medicine and architecture of China, since the local tradition, as Chinese medicine and “fengshui”, attached great importance to the anxiety of the depletion of vital energy. Such forgetting, indeed, even has an enduring impact in the contemporary era.³³ For ventilation today is still measured by the validity of occidental quantification according to instruments like the barometer. The recovery of a respectful intercultural discourse on atmosphere remains unachieved. Nevertheless, today’s alternative medicine and architecture are inclined to embrace holism and multiply traditions in practice, showing the unexpected resiliency of “mongrel” medicine.

In contrast to the technological side, the metaphoric/rhetorical aspect of “barometers” appears more and more in daily practice. For example, it can be seen in “Emotions/Feelings are like barometers,” “Financial markets/Polls are like barometers,” “We designers/artists are like barometers.” At least, such expressions include both favorable and unfavorable consequences; however, the emotional sensitivity would be structured as the atmospheric epistemology of neo-Orientalism in contemporary institutions and digital spaces, as, for instance, the accusation of Chinese “butthurt” about national image (such as the over-staged “APEC Blue” in the “Great Smog” of China), while, on the other side, the label also creates stereotypical accusations of “hivemind” in the Chinese collectivism and seemingly “retarded” intellectual response to air pollution in the 2010s.³⁴ Such contradiction in the cultural atmosphere, somehow, is the contemporary echo of barometric tropes. One of the antidotes, promisingly, hides in the metaphor itself by strategically reframing it as a constructive one: if we continue to feel “un sentiment de gêne” when “le baromètre baisse,” it suggests that we remain capable of measuring such “atmospheric” (neo-)colonial violence through our (historical) experience, our “natures malheureuses/privilégiées,” or perhaps, an “anatomie d’une chute” (de la violence atmosphérique).