Korean Journal of Medical History最新文献

This study analyzes the annual reports of CMB in order to examine CMB's assistance of Korea. CMB originally assisted medical education in China, and it turned to assist Asia with changes in the international situation. This paper examines three periods spanning from 1953 to 1980 when Korea received CMB assist. The first period was from 1953 to 1962, when Korea received help with material resources that were lacking after the Korean War. The second period was from 1963 to 1972 during which the scale of assistance further expanded. Additionally, Seoul National University began to have human resources with the necessary support for education and research with the assistance from CMB. The third period was from 1973 to 1980, when the CMB newly established the overall direction of aid, the contents of assistance for Korea also changed. Throughout this period, Korean medicine was able to lay the foundation for independence, and public health, including community medicine, came to be considered as an important aspect of society.

This book review examines A Cultural History of Heredity as a historical account of the development of a body of thought that the authors refer to as "biological hereditarian thinking" in Europe and North America during the long 19th and 20th centuries. Rather than a standard history of modern genetics, the book, as the title properly suggests, introduces and connects various ideas about heredity. The aim of this review is to simplify the complex historical time frame and highlight some of the main themes and lines of thinking to make this masterpiece more accessible to life and medical scientists. In other words, this review seeks to provide an epistemological typology of heredity.

This paper explores the historical and contemporary significance of medical humanism and its potential value in medical education. Medical humanities emerged as a response to the issues arising from science-driven modern medicine, most notably the marginalization of the individual in medical practice. Medical humanism has evolved to become a guiding ideology in shaping the theory and practice of medical humanities. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has brought about significant changes in medical humanities, challenging the foundations of humanism beyond medical humanism. The rise of posthumanism raises fundamental questions about humanism itself. The climate crisis, driven by human greed and capitalism's exploitation of nature, has led to the emergence of viruses that transcend species boundaries. The overflow of severely ill patients has highlighted the classic medical ethics problem of "who should be saved first" in Korea, and medical humanism is facing a crisis. Various marginalized groups have also pointed out the biases inherent in medical humanism. With this rapidly changing environment in mind, this paper examines the past and present of medical humanism in order to identify the underlying ideology of medical humanism and its future potential in medical education. This paper assumes that there are two axes of humanism: human-centeredness and anthropocentrism. Medical humanism has historically developed along the axis of human-centeredness rather than anthropocentrism, emphasizing the academic inquiry into human nature and conditions, as well as the moral element of humanity. Furthermore, this paper discusses the challenges that medical humanism faces from post-human centeredness and post-anthropocentrism, as well as the recent discourse on posthumanism. Finally, the implications of this shift in medical humanism for the education of the history of medicine are briefly explored.

"Medicine is an art of benevolence [Kr. 인술 Insul, Ch. Renshu]." This slogan is widely accepted in East Asia, and at least in South Korea, it is generally regarded as an innate medical ethic. However, the original meaning of 'In' (Ch. Ren), which means 'benevolence,' 'humanity,' or simply 'love for one another,' is a Confucian virtue emphasized by Mencius. It is unclear when this Confucian term became the representative medical ethic in South Korea. The term "medical ethic" was not coined until the 19th century in the West (Robert Baker and Laurence B. McCullough, eds. 2009). We often use the terms 'Insul,' 'affection,' 'Hippocratic Oath,' and other related concepts interchangeably, but these words come from different times and have different ideological implications (Shin 2000). This paper examines how 'Insul' has been recreated under the tensions between Western and Eastern Medicine in modern Korea. The arrival of Western medicine caused an existential crisis in traditional Korean medicine. The status of TKM doctors was demoted by the 'Uisaeng Regulation' in 1913 by the JGGK, which aimed to establish a unicameral medical system based on Western medicine. In response, the scientification of Eastern medicine became an inevitable task, and Eastern medicine had to maintain its identity while also modernizing itself to avoid being absorbed into Western medicine. Until the late Joseon period, 'Insul' was rarely used in medicine but rather for political practices. Medical practice was a peripheral way of conducting Ren, the Confucian benevolence. However, TKM rediscovered the concept during the modern era. With the Convention of Korean Uisaeng in October 1915, the TKM community actively used 'Insul' as their identity. At this convention, Governor General Terauchi Mastake used the term to mean traditional medicine and implied that without scientification, 'Insul' would be disused. This address was immediately and widely quoted in TKM journals. TKM doctors and adherents interpreted his address to mean that if they could achieve scientification of TKM, their medical ideal (Insul) would be used in the future. Soon, a number of articles on 'Insul' as a medical ethic were published in newspapers and journals. From the mid-1920s, regardless of whether the doctors practiced East or West medicine, people started to claim that only those who pursued 'Insul' were true medical personnel, and they used this as a criterion for evaluating medical doctors. The people's demand for 'Insul' influenced medicine in general, and Western doctors also linked their medical practices to 'Insul.' This is an interesting example of the localization of Western medicine in Korea. Through the rivalry relationship or interaction between East and West medicine that took place in modern Korea, 'Insul' gradually became a representative term of Korean medical ethics since the mid-1920s. The process took place gradually over a decade, and it has now become firmly established througho

This study aimed to confirm what kind of medical treatment was given to criminals by the local governments in Qing China and the role of the government doctors in charge of the criminals' medical care. Using local administrative and historical materials, I explore the procedures and methods of medical treatment and explain the treatment processes for criminals. The findings demonstrate that, although different from modern ideals, in premodern China under the emperor's rule, there were provisions for ailing criminals to receive medical treatment. In the Qing era, the execution of actual punishments worked as a keynote of judicial policy, and the number of criminals managed by local government offices was larger than before. The government doctors took charge of the criminals' medical treatment, but it seems that their position in the Qing era was not popular due to low salaries and psychological resistance to treating guilty criminals. Moreover, the government doctors dispatched to treat criminals were required to play an additional role. They had to testify that there were no other causes of death other than disease, which demonstrates that the government doctor played a role in determining whether the death was a crime. However, their treatment practices for criminals demonstrate the use of traditional medicine from the Tang and Song era onwards. There are two reasons for this. First, unlike the private market, there was no economic incentives for doctors to use new medicines and prescriptions. Second, because of the fear of being reprimanded for the death of the criminal, using classical prescriptions was a way for doctors to defend the adequacy of their medical practice. From an institutional perspective, medical care for criminals through government doctors was guaranteed during the Qing era. However, government doctors were not selected for their medical competence, nor were they provided with adequate incentives to practice good medical care. Even some government doctors devoted themselves to medical care, the quality of care was not systematically guaranteed. This provides evidence of the poor medical environment surrounding criminals in premodern China.

This paper examines how smallpox vaccination has been implemented in China from a technological perspective. It is an attempt not only to investigate the impact of technology and instruments on medical advances, but also to deepen the understanding of modern Chinese society through smallpox vaccination. Smallpox vaccination helps people develop immunity to smallpox by inoculating into them pus from cowpox which is an infectious disease that affects cows. In 1805, Alexander Pearson succeeded in smallpox vaccination using the arm-to-arm transfer method for the first time in China thanks to the arrival of the vaccine in Macao. As Pearson and Quixi, who followed in the footsteps of Pearson, used the arm-to-arm method, they did not have much interest in vaccine containers. However, the vaccine administration technique changed: the vaccine obtained from people was inoculated into cows, and then again, into people. It thus resulted in the manufacturing of various vaccine containers including glass vials and tubes. The development of tools contributed to the expansion of cowpox vaccination. In addition, cowpox vaccines were imported directly from foreign countries. Advertisements which remain to date indicate that vaccines were widely imported. Pharmacies promoted vaccines, contending that the sale and import of vaccines was for the Chinese people. On the other hand, there were voices against imported vaccines, saying that they were expensive and foreign-made. Under the banner of patriotism and nationalism, people demanded that vaccines be made in China, which led to the production of vaccines in large cities such as Shanghai and Beijing. Along with the aforementioned efforts to obtain vaccines, techniques for smallpox vaccination can also be understood in the Chinese context. For example, traditional Chinese medicine maintains that acupuncture can be used as a vaccination lancet. Since traditional Chinese medicine already embraced the use of cowpox for protection against smallpox, they advocated using acupuncture instead of western instruments in order to expand the influence of traditional Chinese medicine. The belief that inoculation should be done into acupuncture points in the upper arms shows the significant influence of traditional Chinese medicine. On the other hand, Chinese people being reluctant to leave vaccine marks show the general view of what was considered as beautiful at the time, rather than the Chinese traditional perspective. Consequently, smallpox vaccine techniques in China, while following the technological advancement in general, could not help but be adapted to the Chinese context under the influence of modern Chinese society. Thus, smallpox vaccine techniques provide clues for understanding modern Chinese society. As such, historians who conduct research mainly with literature should also take interest in medical technology and instruments as well.

In the 18th century, the trade of medicinal materials in East Asia showed a trend of rapid development, and by the second half of the 18th century, it became the largest commodity category in East Asia's international trade. The growth of medicinal material trade during this period was not a simple trade issue, but was closely related to a series of changes in economic fields, such as the market network, trade balance and production. The changes in the international trade environment from the 17th to the 19th centuries greatly increased the demand for medicinal materials. It also affected the production of medicinal materials. The medicinal material industries in East Asian countries were characterised by specialisation and marketisation, and provided the market with abundant and high-quality medicinal materials. In turn, the development of the medicinal material industry promoted international trade, making medicinal materials the largest traded commodity in East Asia. In the 18th century, the development of medicinal material trade promoted the recalibration of international trade, and changed the commodity structure of East Asian trade. It is a result of the transformation of international trade and economic relations, and an important participant in the development of East Asian economy. Trade of medicinal materials in the 18th century expanded the market network and formed a positive interaction between trade and production, and reshaped the international trade structure of East Asia.

Medical history was an important part of medicine in the West from antiquity, through the Middle Ages, and until the Renaissance. Hippocrates, Galen, and Avicenna were historical figures, but they dominated the medicine of the Western world at least until Renaissance. The medicine of the past, which did not become history, still remained an important part of present medicine. In the 19th century, medicine in the past is now relativized as an object of history. At the same time, the 'practicality' of medical science was emphasized. The practicality referred to here means that, unlike previous times, medicine in the past has been historicalized, but it can provide practical help to current medicine. In particular, in the era of positivism that dominated the late 19th century, this practicality was a core value of medical history. In the 20th century, the era of scientific medicine, the new role is given to medical history. It was to give a integrated view on contemporary medicine which was subdivided into many specialized fields. Along with this, medical history, once a main part of medicine, moves to the field of history. At the same time, the rise of medical humanities in medical education becomes an opportunity to redefine the role of medical history. Seeking productive cooperation with other humanities and social sciences that deal with medical issues, such as medical anthropology, medical sociology, and literature, will be a new task given to medical history today.

The history of medicine has been continuously devaluated in medical education but its importance should not be ignored as for other medical humanities. The educational value of the history of medicine could be summarized as follows ; it allows the students 1) to understand the humane aspect of medicine by telling them how medicine has dealt with human health-disease phenomena in each era of the human history. 2) to improve the professionalism by recognizing that medicine is a profession with a long tradition that dates back to the Hippocratic era 3) to improve current medical practice by understanding the limitations and uncertainties of medicine. 4) to understanding the historical changes of the disease phenomena 5) to develop the basic competence of learned intellectual. 6) to integrate the tradition of their own institutions with themselves.

This article explores the shaping of gender hierarchy between the nurse and the doctor in modern Japan, through the lens of the Tokyo Imperial University Hospital. I understand gender hierarchy of these two medical professions not just in terms of ranks in hospital bureaucracies, salaries, or educational credentials, but also the ways their work was defined, their skill levels were evaluated, as well as the probability of their united actions as members of a single profession to advocate their shared interests. Tokyo Imperial University is Japan's oldest university, which is the birthplace of modern medical education. The hospital of this university was a symbolic locus for the making of gender hierarchy of the doctor and the nurse, which often transpired in other institutions and articulated in state regulations such as the Nurse Regulations prepared by Home Ministry officials in 1915. In this hospital, doctors who were male, while designing nursing education and labor practices, defined nursing primarily as women's supplementary labor for doctors. While doctors had an exclusive professional territory, such as diagnosis, surgery, and medication, what nurses' exclusive professional territory was undefined and how their skill levels could be evaluated remained unclear. In other words, probationary nurses often worked together with trained nurses, which allowed managers of the hospital to exploit their cheap labor, as well as attenuating the professional authority of the trained nurses. But, this process did not go unchallenged. Leaders of nurses at this hospital, such as Suzuki Masa and Ōzeki Chika did not think that nurses should be subordinated to the doctor. As managers of the Tokyo Imperial University Hospital hired unmarried women to have them endure intense labor with low wages, Ōzeki publicly protested a doctor at Tokyo Imperial University to improve nurses' working environment, and these two soon resigned. After the resignation, Suzuki organized a visiting nurse service company called The Charity Visiting Nurse Corps (jizen kangofukai), and dispatched a group of its member nurses to the clients. Unlike when they worked in the Tokyo Imperial University Hospital, they became an independent service provider, deciding their work schedules, and the fees for their service for themselves. Compared to their wages in the Tokyo Imperial University Hospital, the service fees were two to three times higher in this new company. As nurses came to claim a high pay, visiting nurse service companies of this kind blossomed in Tokyo and other big cities, However, they eventually failed to gain a clear legal definition of what nurses could exclusively do as professionals and how their skills were assessed, and private nurses lost their high demand during the Great Depression. By looking at this process, this article reconfirms the conventional wisdom that the gender hierarchy of doctors and nurses were not biologically given but socially constructed thr