Plague Masks in Japan: Reflecting on the 1899 German Debates and the Suffering of Patients/Doctors in Osaka

Abstract

“This may be the first time that Europe has modeled its behavior on that of Asia.” These are the words of a Japanese scholar of French literature, right after several local governments in France made mask-wearing mandatory in April 2020 (Nemoto 2020). Now we can modify that as “this may be the first time the world has modeled its behavior on that of Asia.” Before the COVID-19 pandemic, wearing masks was regarded as part of East Asian culture (Hyun and Sumida ; O’Dwyer ; Tasker ; Victor and Ives 2021). The history of masks, however, has not been investigated as much as one would expect, especially in Japan. In my article published in the Japanese journal Gendai Shishō 現代思想 (Contemporary Thought) in April 2020, I identified that the modern mask culture in Japan started with the introduction of “Jeffreys’s respirator” originated in London, which was transliterated as “resupirātoru” レスピラートル (respirator) in several catalogs of medical instruments in the late 1870s, right after the Meiji Restoration in 1868 (Sumida 2020a, 2020b). Not only did It become popular for its medical purposes but rather as a fashion item in urban centers like Tokyo (Figures 1 and 2). “Resupirātoru” was regarded as part of civilization at least in 1925 when the advertisement (Figure 1) was reprinted in a book Bunmei kaika文明開化 (Civilization and Enlightenment) (Miyatake 1925). Japan embraced wearing masks as the means of modernization. Regarding the history of masks following the introduction of the “resupirātoru,” I wrote that “[t]he use of masks by medical personnel for the purpose of disease