Science, Nurses, Physicians and Disease

This is a history of the emergence of a modern Japanese identity in the latter half of the nineteenth century as seen through the lens of scientific medicine. This study makes the argument that Japanese physicians’ construction of a modern identity was a two-fold process that identified Japan in line with Western imperialism and Western fields of knowledge, while conceptually distancing the island nation from nearby Asian neighbors. This perspective, which reflected the growing understanding among Japanese of their country’s emerging place in the world in the Meiji era (1868-1912), occurred within the context of the broad social, political, economic and military reforms that defined this period. Western medicine based on the rational proofs and perceived universality of scientific inquiry, positioned Japanese physicians as agents of modernity. I examine the way scientific medicine informed Japanese modernity in two ways: I begin by looking at how the Japanese Red Cross Society nurse came to be perceived as a national heroine, then I explain the Japanese Army Medical Bureau’s struggle to prevent beriberi, a nutritional deficiency illness in its ranks. These case studies offer a window into the interplay between modern medicine and traditional social values and underscore the reality that a field of knowledge is not adopted, but rather adapted and negotiated. In this case identity formation in Japan was not merely the result of scientific medicine transforming Japan, but was also influenced by Japanese society’s impact on scientific medicine. For Japanese physicians it was not enough to assert a modern identity they were also compelled to draw clear distinctions between a modern Japan and what they perceived to be a “backward” Asia. They did this by using disease categories related to cholera and other contagious illnesses to define the Asian continent as a particularly dangerous epidemiological space. In addition, Japanese practitioners of scientific medicine examined, studied and reported on Chinese and Korean food items, sanitation habits, medical practices and body types to demonstrate what they understood to be social, cultural and physical differences between Japanese and other Asians. This study is supported by the qualitative analysis of an array of primary source materials related to nineteenth century medicine in Japan. These include writings in medical journals, Army Medical Bureau reports, Japanese Red Cross Society reports and the Home Ministry’s Central Sanitary Bureau reports, as well as the writings of influential physicians like Ishiguro Tadanori, the founder of the Japanese army’s system of military medicine in the period, and Mori Rintarō, Ishiguro’s protégé who rose to the rank of Surgeon-General of the Japanese army.