["Infectious disease" theory during the Japanese Shogunate: an analysis of "Ichikawa Hashimoto-Hakuju-cho Dandoku-ron Ikken"].

Abstract

Dandoku-ron (Treatise on Eliminating Poisons), written at the beginning of the 19th century by Hakuju Hashimoto, a doctor from Kai (Yamanashi Prefecture), is said to be the first book written by a Japanese author who "treated infectious diseases by means of modern concepts." Hashimoto acquired the ideas for his "infectious disease" theory through his own observations and experience. These ideas, suggesting that tangible poisons--not epidemics or congenital eczema--caused diseases such as smallpox, measles, syphilis, and scabies, were fresh and original at the time. The originality that Hashimoto demonstrated in Dandokuron sometimes conflicted, however, with the theories of the Ikeda group of the Igakkan (Tokugawa Shogunate medical school). This paper details information related to this conflict and explores the politicization caused by the "infectious disease" theory during the Japanese Shogunate.