Korean Journal of Medical History最新文献

This study examines the development of international debates about the perception of nutrients, particularly protein, with a focus on the "Protein Debate" of the late 20th century. The nutritional obsession with protein has been ongoing since the early 19th century, when scientific nutrition was established, and has been at the center of debates surrounding food, agriculture, healthcare, and the environment, changing in shape and form over time. In addition to being a nutrient necessary for optimal physical and mental performance, protein has been a marker of poverty and discrimination at the international level and explains differences in individual living standards. Kwashiorkor, also known as protein calorie disorder, medicalized the problem of poverty in the Third World or underdeveloped countries. By the 1970s, the nutritional discussion of protein had undergone a radical transformation, with implications for the entire development discourse, including poverty and human rights. This study of the historical discourse on protein deficiency goes beyond the scientific focus on nutritional status, food, and dietary health to identify the social, economic, and cultural implications of nutrition.

This article deals with drugs obtain and distribution during the Goryeo Dynasty. In particular, I analyzed the case of 'Bupleuri Radix', which corresponds to 'dot-ui minali' as Idu, an archaic Korean notation, and Ginger, which was intentionally introduced and cultivated in Goryeo. Drugs of the Goryeo Dynasty can be classified into 5 types. Drugs that use the Chinese character name as the name of Goryeo were type A, drugs that correspond 1:1 with the archaic Korean notation to the Chinese character name were type B, and drugs that have the Chinese character name translated directly into the Korean name were type C. And although it were originally the foreign drugs, the drugs cultivated in Goryeo were Type D, and the drugs imported from foreign countries were Type E. Among these, types B and D are particularly interesting. Bupleuri Radix and Ginger discussed in this article were representative examples of type B and D respectively. Looking overall, type B had the highest proportion, followed by type A. Type E was the next most common. On the other hand, type C and D were relatively small. However, regardless of the high or low proportion, these types coexisted and constituted the therapeutic drugs of the Goryeo Dynasty. In conclusion, during the Goryeo Dynasty, interest and use of local drugs, namely Hyangjae, greatly expanded.

Unlike Western medical journals such as The Lancet which focused on Western-centric medical cases, Medical Reports analyzed medical and sanitary issues in East Asia, including China, Korea, and Japan and sought solutions to these problems. Medical Reports, a medical project initiated by the Chinese Maritime Customs Service (CMCS) in 1871, aimed to compile reference materials on the health conditions and diseases in ports. It was launched by the British Inspector General Robert Hart, who appointed the British Shanghai Customs Surgeon R. Alexander Jameson as the editor. Beginning in the 1860s, the British-led CMCS began expanding its reach from major cities to border areas, western regions, Taiwan Island, and Hainan Island, as well as territories beyond Qing Dynasty, such as Seoul, Busan, Incheon, Hong Kong, and Macau. This expansion required multinational cooperation, leading to the participation of Customs Surgeons, medical missionaries, and military doctors from ten countries, including the UK, the United States, France, China, Germany, Canada, Portugal, Norway, the Netherlands, and Australia, in the Medical Reports project. The Medical Reports were directly tied to the medical and sanitary initiatives in that community. They were authored by Customs Surgeons from a country with substantial regional influence. An analysis of the authors' nationalities, primary research focuses, and the relationship between the customs regions they covered revealed a statistically significant correlation. Even after Robert Koch discovered bacteria in the late nineteenth century, the miasma theory remained dominant, and most British doctors in India did not acknowledge the possibility that diseases could be caused by parasites. Despite this conservative historical context, the Medical Reports featured progressive research, including studies on leprosy based on germ theory and studies that actively embraced the emerging theory that parasites could be the cause of certain illnesses. In this process, the relatively unknown young physician named Patrick Manson, while working at the CMCS for 13 years, significantly advanced his medical knowledge by publishing numerous studies on filaria in the Medical Reports. His work led to the groundbreaking discovery that mosquitoes transmit infectious diseases. These research achievements pioneered the field of tropical medicine, a discipline that had not been established even in the extensive colonial holdings of France and Britain in tropical regions. Manson's work for the Medical Reports significantly advanced human efforts to prevent and respond to infectious diseases.

This article aims to analyze the types of surgical diseases and treatments in ancient China as documented in bamboo and silk texts, with a particular focus on (external) injury, tetanus, burns, rectal and anal diseases, and inguinal hernias. For this analysis, I gathered 85 instances of disease and treatments recorded in these texts. The 85 cases were further categorized into 13 (external) injuries, 13 metal wounds, 6 tetanus, 22 burns, 16 rectal and anal diseases, and 15 inguinal hernias. The analysis revealed that the treatment of (external) injury and burns focused primarily on the wound site, while the treatment of metal wounds and tetanus centered on addressing the internal body. Internal treatments were mainly prescribed through the use of medicine and food. Surgical intervention was recommended primarily for diseases of the rectum and anus, with medications applied to the woundspost-surgery. For inguinal hernias, a high-protein diet was typically prescribed. As we've seen, in ancient China, surgical diseases were mainly treated with medication, surgery, and dietary prescriptions. And among these prescriptions, drug prescriptions were utilized not only by medical doctors but also by witch-doctors treating diseases in civilian society and soldiers stationed at frontline military posts. In the absence of medical doctors in both civilian society and frontline units, witch-doctors and frontline units purchased or stockpiled prescription drugs and used them to treat patients according to prescription.

South Korea's national healthcare system after liberation often described as transformation from 'sanitation' to 'public health'. The U.S. military government introduced public health nursing as the primary vehicle for communicating the newly introduced concept of public health to the Korean public. This meant that nursing, which had been in a subordinate position within the healthcare system during the Japanese occupation, had to be repositioned within the healthcare system as an independent and leading professional agent of healthcare. At the same time creating positions for public health nurses within the newly envisioned health center system, and convincing the public that nurses were the primary agents of public health activities. Yet, in resource limited setting, the role of public health nurses was significantly scaled back. Initial plans for institutionalized, community-wide health care through home visits shifted to addressing the challenges facing Korean society, including maternal and child health and infectious disease prevention. Ironically, the expansion of health centers during late 1950s diminished the position of public health nurses within local government health systems, who were gradually replaced by male administrative staff. The role of public health nurses was greatly curtailed in the 1960s, but they laid the groundwork for later community nursing and health care efforts. At the same time, public health nurses were assigned with new role of 'visiting' local health centers for observation, education, and management. Public health nursing allows to look beyond the ideological and institutional dimensions to examine how new concepts and practices of "public health" were actually transmitted to communities in post-liberation Korea.

During the Song period, abscesses were a disease that could affect anyone regardless of their class. This study examines how people at that time explained the cause of abscesses and their efforts to treat them, focusing on the experiences of those who suffered from abscesses and their families. Previous research on disease history during the Song period primarily focused on ailments like colds and infectious diseases , or plagues prevalent in the southern regions of China. On the other hand, examining abscesses as a common everyday illness that could affect anyone and considering them from the perspective of patients' experiences has remained unexplored in previous studies. To reconstruct the experiences of Song period patients, this study analyzes over sixty anecdotes related to abscesses found in Yi Jian Zhi written by Hong Mai. These cases span across the mid to late 12th century, with a majority of the patients being from the literati () class or connected to the literati. These anecdotes exhibit two distinct trends. One focuses on narratives surrounding the onset of abscesses, attributing their cause primarily to the patients' lifestyle. When the cause of the abscesses was unknown, people metaphorically attributed its onset to perceived blasphemy against God, an act of killing, negligence in duties, or other wrongdoings. This trend is evident among the literati class in particular, where abscesses were often linked to factors such as excessive legal executions or exploitation, and even acts of killing people. Except for those cases, in explaining the cause of abscesses in commoners, there were instances caused by a pediculus infestation, while in case of literati, Dansha () poisoning was a common cause. It is interesting to note that the narrative tradition, prevalent in official history biographies, which attributes the onset of abscesses to worries and resentment, was not evident in written records such as Yi Jian Zhi. Furthermore, the detailed description of external similarities, portraying abscesses as traces of punishment from the underground realm, is a narrative characteristic that solidified such stereotypical perceptions. The literati's notion that they should alert people through these related anecdotes contributed to the spread of this perception. Another trend in these anecdotes was centered around narratives of abscess treatment, where the focus shifted primarily to seeking "doctors," unlike the metaphorical explanations of abscess onset causes and processes. When afflicted with abscesses, people generally sought out those renowned surgeons, known as Yang-yi , and those famous for treating abscesses. In local communities, individuals who had "received the divine secrets of abscesses," those possessing their own mysterious abscesses cures, and those famous for generations for treating abscesses by using stone acupuncture were active. Such information about them was shared within the local societies. Their treatment predomi

This article focuses on the medical activities conducted by major hospitals in downtown Seoul during the April Revolution in 1960, examining their experiential context and significance. The influx of guns and bullets into Korean society following the liberation in 1945 intertwined with the political and social conflicts of the period, resulting in numerous assassinations, crimes, and terrorism. Gunshot wounds were traumas that became a part of the everyday life of Koreans, as well as scars which reflected their historical contexts. At the same time, the frequent occurrence of gunshot wounds led to the development of medical capacities to treat them. The Korean surgical academia expanded its technical foundation with experiences during and after the Korean War. This progress was particularly noticeable in areas closely related to gunshot wounds, such as craniotomy, thoracotomy, vascular anastomosis, debridement, anesthesia, and blood transfusion. Major hospitals in downtown Seoul served as medical spaces where these experimental and technical foundations were concentrated, allowing them to minimize the death toll despite the massive gunfire by the National Police in April 1960. Thus, the aftermath of the epidemic of gunshots resulted in a rather paradoxical outcome. This development became a resource for doctors and nurses, who added their revolutionary implications in reconstructing the experience of April 1960 in their various memoirs and reports. While memoirs reorganized general medical activities, portraying injured patients as participants in the revolution, reports provided forensic descriptions and interpretations of the deaths, giving authority to the main narrative of the revolution. As the interpretations and significance based on historical contexts gained prominence, major hospitals in downtown Seoul also developed a sense of place closely associated with the revolution.