Abstract
The adoption of Western medicine was an integral part of Japan’s modernization from its very beginning,1 leading ultimately to the introduction of “scientific medicine,” a defining characteristic of the modern world. Scientific medicine started as a development in Western Europe, and after considerable conflict, came to be recognized as producing “true medical knowledge.” This, in turn, was made universal through exportation.2 Scientific medicine is based on two distinctive institutions, the hospital and the laboratory, which still prevail today. In hospital medicine, clinical investigation searches for correlations between symptoms and signs of disease, and internal changes of the body. Research focuses on anatomical pathology, and post-mortems are routinely performed. In laboratory medicine, causes of diseases are identified by experiments in order to create cures for them. Laboratory research concentrates on living processes like bacteriology, uses living animals for experiments, and depends strongly on scientific instruments like microscopes.3
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Notes
Christian Oberländer, Zwischen Tradition und Moderne: Die Bewegung für den Fortbestand der Kanpō-Medizin in Japan (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner [Medizin, Gesellschaft und Geschichte, Beiheft 7], 1995), pp. 51–65.
Andrew Cunningham and Bridie Andrews, “Introduction: Western Medicine as Contested Knowledge,” in Western Medicine as Contested Knowledge, ed. Andrew Cunningham and Bridie Andrews (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997), pp. 1–23; here pp. 8–9, 12.
Andrew Cunningham and Perry Williams, “Introduction,” in The Laboratory Revolution in Medicine, ed. Andrew Cunningham and Perry Williams (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 1–13; here pp. 2–5.
See, e.g., Yamashita Seizō, Meijiki ni okeru kakke no rekishi (History of the Beriberi Disease in the Meiji Period) (Tokyo: Tōkyō Daigaku Shuppankai, 1988), p. 295;
Itakura Kiyonobu, Mohō no jidai (The Age of Imitation) (Tokyo: Kasetsusha, 1988), p. 299.
Fujino Tsunezaburō, Tujino, Nihon saikingaku-shi (Fujino’s History of Japanese Bacteriology) (Tokyo: Kindai Shuppan, 1984), pp. 105–114.
James Bartholomew, The Formation of Science in Japan (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), p. 81.
K. Cordell Carter, “The Germ Theory, Beriberi, and the Deficiency Theory of Disease,” Medical History 1977, 21: 119–136.
Yamashita Seizō, Kakke no rekishi: bitamin hakken izen (History of Beriberi: Before the Discovery of the Vitamin) (Tokyo: Tōkyō Daigaku Shuppankai, 1983), pp. 183, 191, 220, 356–358.
Heinrich Botho Scheube, “Die japanische Kak-ke (Beri-beri),” Deutsches Archiv für klinische Medizin 1882, 31, 1 and 2 (May 30): 141–202; 3 and 4 (July 13): 307–348; 32, 1 and 2 (November 8): 83–119; here pp. 148–149.
Kōseishō Imukyoku, Isei hyakunenshi shiryōhen (Hundred Year History of the Medical Law: Sources) (Tokyo: Gyōsei, 1976), pp. 52–53.
William Johnston, The Modern Epidemic: A History of Tuberculosis in Japan (Cambridge, Mass.: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1995), p. 188.
Kashimura Seitoku, “Kakke-ron” (On Beriberi), Tōkyō iji shinshi (Tokyo Medical Journal) April 10, 1878, 16: 5–13; here pp. 5, 10.
Hashimoto Tsunatsune, “Kakke shinsetsu” (New Theory of Beriberi), Iji shinbun May 11, 1878, 1: 1–13; here pp. 2–4.
In addition to the term “bacteria,” other expressions were frequently used in Japan. For example, the term “fungus” (pirutsu) was common. Hashimoto Tsunatsune described the pathogen of diphteria as a “fungus” that enters the mouth from the atmosphere (Hashimoto Tsunatsune, “Kōtō ‘Jihrterichisu’ no setsu” [On “Diphteria” of the Throat], Tōkyō iji shinshi February 22, 1879, 48: 1–13; here pp. 4–12).
Ishiguro Tadanori, Kakke-ron (Theory of Beriberi) (Tokyo: Eirandō, 1878), pp. 3, 5, 21.
For a more complete overview of the theories of beriberi’s causation that Japanese and foreign physicians of the Meiji period proposed, see Christian Oberländer, “The Rise of Scientific Medicine in Japan,” Historia Scientiarum 2004, 13 (3): 176–199; here pp. 177–180.
Kakke Byōin, Kakke byōin daiichi hōkoku (First Report of the Beriberi Hospital) (Tokyo: Kakke Byōin, 1879).
Heinrich Botho Scheube, “Die japanische Kak-ke (Beri-beri),” Deutsches Archiv für klinische Medizin 1882, 31, 1 and 2 (May 30): 141–202; 3 and 4 (July 13): 307–348; 32, 1 and 2 (November 8): 83–119; here p. 147.
Satomi Giichirō, “Miasma shobyō” (Miasmatic Diseases), Iji shinbun September 15, 1880, 30: 1–3.
Kakke Byōin, Kakke byōin daini hōkoku (Second Report of the Beriberi Hospital) (Tokyo: Kakke Byōin, 1881), p. 77.
Heinrich Vianden, Die Einführung der deutschen Medizin im Japan der Meiji-Zeit (Düsseldorf: Triltsch Verlag [= Düsseldorfer Arbeiten zur Geschichte der Medizin 59], 1985), p. 134.
Takagi Kanehiro, “Kakke-byō yobō-setsu” (About the Prevention of the Beriberi Disease), Dai-Nihon shiritsu eiseikai zasshi (Journal of the Great-Japan Private Society for Hygiene) 1885, 22: 1–20.
Ōsawa Kenji, “Bakuhan no setsu” (About the Barley-Rice-Mix), Dai-Nihon shiritsu eiseikai zasshi, July 18, 1885, 26: 1–13 and August 18, 27: 1–16.
William Anderson, “Kak’ké,” Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan October 27, 1878, 6 (1): 155–178; here pp. 155, 169–170, 175. An overview is given by Carter, “The Germ Theory,” pp. 126–127.
Ishiguro Tadanori, Kakke-dan (About Beriberi) (Tokyo: Eirandō, 1885).
Erwin von Baelz, “Ueber die in Japan vorkommenden Infectionskrankheiten,” Mittheilungen der OAG August 1882, 27: 295–319; here pp. 304–307, 315.
Felix Victor Birch-Hirschfeld, Lehrbuch der pathologischen Anatomie (Leipzig: F.C.W. Vogel, 1877).
K. Cordeil Carter, “Koch’s Postulates in Relation to the Work of Jacob Henle and Edwin Klebs,” Medical History 1985, 29: 353–374; here p. 365.
Sakaki Junjirō, “Kekkakusho ha hatashite densenbyō nari” (Is Tuberculosis really an Infectious Disease?), Tōkyō iji shinshi May 5, 1883, 266: 12–16; here p. 13.
Wallace Taylor, “Kakke ichimei beri-beri no gen’in” (The Cause of Kakke or Beriberi), Tōkyō iji shinshi August 8, 1885, 384: 998–1001.
Watanabe Kanae, “Kakke byōdoku hatsumei-ron” (About the Discovery of the Beriberi Agent), Tōkyō iji shinshi September 27, 1884, 339: 1207–1211 and October 4, 340: 1241–1247; here pp. 1208–1211; 1242–1246.
Hiroi Komaji et al., “Kakke gen’in-ron” (About the Cause of Beriberi), Chūgai iji shinpō (International Medical Review) January 10, 1885, 115: 15–19; January 25, 116: 23–25; February 10, 117: 20–22; February 25, 118: 19–22.
Ōgata Masanori, “Kakke byōdoku hakken” (Discovery of the Beriberi Disease Poison), Tōkyō iji shinshi April 11, 1885, 367: 454–457; April 18, 368: 492–497; April 25, 369: 517–522; here p. 454.
For the use of different methods of representation in bacteriology, see e.g., Thomas Schlich, “Linking Cause and Disease in the Laboratory: Robert Koch’s Method of Superimposing Visual and ‘Functional’ Representations of Bacteria,” History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 2000, 22: 43–58.
Erwin von Baelz, “Kakkebyō-ron” (About the Beriberi Disease), Chūgai iji shinpō March 25, 1881, 26: 1–8 and April 10, 27: 1–10.
Yamazaki Motomichi, “Kakkebyō ōtō” (Answers concerning the Beriberi Disease), Dai-Nihon shiritsu eiseikai zasshi July 25, 1885, 26: 53–58; here p. 53.
For details concerning the debate about specificity during the early development of bacteriology, see Pauline Mazumdar, Species and Specificity. An Interpretation of the History of Immunology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).
Ilana Löwy, “Yellow Fever in Rio de Janeiro and the Pasteur Institute Mission (1901–1905): The Transfer of Science to the Periphery,” Medical History 1990, 34: 144–163; here p. 162.
K. Cordell Carter, “The Development of Pasteur’s Concept of Disease Causation and the Emergence of Specific Causes in Nineteenth-Century Medicine,” Bulletin for the History of Medicine 1991, 65: 528–548; here p. 544.
See also Thomas Schlich, “Die Konstruktion der notwendigen Krankheitsursache: Wie die Medizin Krankheit beherrschen will,” in Anatomien medizinischen Wissens. Medizin, Macht, Moleküle, ed. Cornelius Borck (Fischer: Frankfurt a.M., 1996), pp. 201–229.
Nancy J. Tomes and John Harley Warner, “Introduction to the Special Issue on Rethinking the Reception of the Germ Theory of Disease: Comparative Perspectives,” Journal of the History of Medicine 1997, 52: 7–16.
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Oberländer, C. (2005). The Rise of Western “Scientific Medicine” in Japan: Bacteriology and Beriberi. In: Low, M. (eds) Building a Modern Japan. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403981110_2
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