Building a strong and healthy empire: the critical period of building colonial medicine in Taiwan

Abstract

This article focuses on fundamental events in the establishment of colonial medicine in Japanese Taiwan (1895–1945). It aims to analyze factors shaping the Japanese design of colonial medicine. Influenced by a new German-Japanese medical tradition, public health officials in colonial Taiwan such as Gotō Shinpei emphasized the distinctiveness of the tropical environment and the unhygienic behavior of the inhabitants of Taiwan. They sought to control epidemic disease through public health intervention and medical reform, improving the living environment for Japanese settlers and ‘controlling’ the unsanitary Taiwanese. This study underscores the importance of colonial factors beyond the increase of medical facilities and sanitary concepts that profoundly influenced the health of the colonial population in the early occupation period. It explores colonial medicine in the context of the westernization of Japanese medicine and of compromises necessitated by the colonial context.

Notes

 Lo, Doctors within Borders: Profession, Ethnicity and Modernity in Colonial Taiwan.

 Naimushō Eiseikyoku, Isei gojūnenshi, 7–8.

 Johnston, The Modern Epidemic: A History of Tuberculosis in Japan, 170.

 Frühstück, Colonizing Sex: Sexology and Social Control in Modern Japan, 22.

 Berutsu (Baelz), ‘Nippon jinshu kairyōron’, 3–26.

 Pappenheim was a German medical doctor and sanitary official. His book was published in Berlin in 1886. See Hino, ‘Gotō Shinpei, “kokka eisei genri” shiriron no sengen’, 79–81.

 Gotō Shinpei, Eisei seidoron, 1–37, 90.

 Gotō did not talk about how to apply medical and biological principles to Taiwan. In my opinion, Gotō was merely interested in how to ‘politically’ colonize Taiwan at this time. See Gotō, op. cit., 95–99, 107–113.

 On Gotō's cooperation with General Kodama, see Tsurumi, Gotō Shinpei, 657–750. The reaction of Tokyo Imperial University to Gotō's reforms is discussed on pp. 855–870, and in Nagaki, Kitazato Shibasaburō to sono ichimon, 294–297.

 See Onodera Saruto, ‘Gotō Shinpei kenkyū jūseizō’. The two proposals are ‘Taiwan ni okeru ahen seisaku ni kansuru ikenshō’ (‘Opinion on Taiwanese opium policy’) and ‘Taiwantōchi kyūkyūan sōan’ (‘Draft of the emergency policy for the rules in Taiwan’).

 Tsuboi, ‘Taiwan no eisei’.

 Taiwan Sōtokufu Keimukyoku, Taiwan Sōtokufu keisatsu enkakushi, 98–109.

 Oda, Taiwan igaku gojūnen, 48–49, 55.

 Taiwan Sōtokufu, Taiwanshisei jūnenshi, 602–607.

 See Fan, ‘Xinyixue zai Taiwan de jian’.

 Chin, ‘Colonial medical police and postcolonial medical surveillance system in Taiwan’.

 Taiwan Sōtokufu, Taiwan Sōtoku fupo.

 Yoshino and Aida, ‘Taiwan kaikyō e ken'etsu no kishi’, 3, 5–11.

 Taiwan Sōtokufu Minseibu, Taiwan eisei gaiyō, 13–17.

 The Japanese were, of course, not the first to introduce western medicine to Taiwan as missionary hospitals date back to the seventeenth century. Li, ‘Jidujiao yu Taiwan yiliaoweisheng de xiandaihua’, 153–163.

 Refer to Wu, ‘Linshi Taiwanjiuquan diaochahuide chenquo’, 23–58.

 Tsurumi, Gotō Shinpei, Vol. 2, 371.

 Weishengshu, Taiwan diqu gonggong weisheng fazhanshi, 104–109.

 Taiwansheng xiengzheng zhangquang gongshu, Taiwansheng wushiyinianlai tongjitiya, 1249–1250.

 Zhang henhao, Yangkui ji, 85–96.

 Taiwan Sōtokufu igakuseimon gakkō, Sōtokufu igaku seimon gakkō ichiran, 162.

 Anon., ‘Taiwan kōi ni tsuite’, 337.

 Taiwan Sōtokufu Minseibu, Taiwan eisei gaiyō, 35–37.

 Taiwansheng xiengzheng zhangquang gongshu, Taiwansheng wushiyinianlai tongjitiya, 1249.

 Lo, Doctors within Borders: Profession, Ethnicity and Modernity in Colonial Taiwan, 83.

 Horiuchi, ‘Taiwan jūgunki’.

 Zhang Jiafang, ‘Time frame and reasons of Kangxi Emperor adopted variolation’.

 For a general description of disease and mortality changes in Taiwanese history, see Liu Ts'ui-jung and Liu Shiyung, ‘Disease and mortality in the history of Taiwan’.

 Takekoshi, Japanese Rule in Formosa, 283 ff; Government-General of Taiwan, Statistical Summary of Taiwan , 407.

 Jefferys and Maxwell, The Diseases of China, Including Formosa and Korea, 24.

 ‘No. 466 “Shisetsu (facilities)”’ in Taiwan Sōtokufu, Taiwan Sōtokufu kōbun ruisan.

 For the actual numbers, see Taiwansheng xiengzheng zhangquang gongshu, Taiwansheng wushiyinianlai tongjitiyao, Tables 490, 491, and 493; and Shepherd, ‘Smallpox and the pattern of mortality in late nineteenth-century Taiwan’, 283–284.

 Shepherd, ‘Smallpox and the pattern of mortality’, 283.

 Taiwan Sōtokufu, Taiwan jinkō dōtai tōkei, 1–5.

 ‘Taihokugunnai gakusei shutōseiski’ (‘The result of cowpox vaccination among the student of Taibei county’), in Taiwan shiryōkai, Taiwan shiryō kōhō, no page number.

 Lo, Doctors within Borders, 199–200.

 Takagi, ‘Nettai shokumin ni seikō no in’, 237–243.

 Wakimura, ‘Malaria control under the colonial rule: India and Taiwan’, 178–182.

 Nakahashi, ‘Shokumin seisaku to eisei’.

 Hino, ‘Gotō Shinpei no eisei gyōseiron no itchisei ni tsuite’, 79–81.

 Anon., ‘Eisei kogoto’, 54.

 Despite the use of the term ‘kōshū eisei’, the same Japanese term that was used to translate ‘public health’ after 1935, this term meant ‘public hygiene’ and indicates the sanitation conditions in urban area at this moment. For different conceptions of public health and public hygiene in Japanese colonial context, see Liu, ‘“Qingjie” “weisheng” yu “paojian”’.

 There had been a great conflict between Kitazato's pupils and the medical graduates of Tokyo University (Todai) in the 1900s. Takagi was one of Kitazato's students and colleagues when the principal of Tokyo University took over the Kitazato Institute. Former researchers of the Kitazato Institute such as Takagi usually took positions in the colonies while graduates of Todai dominated medical development in Japan. For details of the conflict, see Nagaki, Kitazato Shibasaburō to sono ichimon, 45–81.

 Max von Pettenköfer's ‘sub-soil water’ theory of cholera causation did not allow for the communicability of a hypothetical cholera ‘germ’, but placed most emphasis on the local factors thought to be necessary for its propagation. Therefore, the way to control water supply and improve the soil was for the government to sanitize the local environment. For a detailed discussion, see Jones, The Scientific Background of the International Sanitary Conference, 22–34.

 In the colonial period the construction and management of the water supply system was the responsibility of the local government, and the number of water systems was counted by each headquarter unit. We should also bear in mind that earlier numbers could be unreliable because of the confusion of real and estimated rates. For example, the figure of 1.4% given in government reports in 1905 was an expected rate. The expected rate in 1942 was 22.0% while the real rate was 16.1%. See Taiwansheng xiengzheng zhangquang gongshu, Taiwansheng wushiyinianlai tongjitiyao, 1281.

 Li Denghui, Taiwan nongyefazhan de jingji fenxi, 2; Zhang Zhonghan, Guangfuqian Taiwanzhigongyehua, 31.

 Taiwansheng xiengzheng zhangquang gongshu, Taiwansheng wushiyinianlai tongjitiyao, 1281; Taiwan suidō kenkyūkai, Taiwan suidōji, 619, 653, 677–682.

 Place names are given in both pinyin and the official Romanized versions to assist in locating them on maps.

 Zhang Yinghua, ‘Qingmoyilai Taiwandoshi de xingqi yu bianqian’, p. 239.

 Tōgō and Satō, Taiwan shokumin hattatsushi, 174–177.

 Taiwan suidō kenkyūkai, Taiwan suidōji, 619, 653, 677–682, 691, 701–704.

 Ibid., 641–646.

 Oda, Taiwan igaku gojūnen, 12–16, 63–75.

 Taiwan Sōtokufu, Taiwan eisei gaiyō, 15.

 Minamisaki, Igaku to eisei, 31–33.

 Ono Yashirō, ‘Seiketsu’ no kindai, 64.

 The Japanese adopted the hokō (or baojia) system from Qing Taiwan. They expanded its surveillance functions to include crimes and epidemics. The hokō system in colonial Taiwan was supported and financed by local police departments to execute governmental orders. See Suzuki, Taiwan no hokō seido, 3–6.

 Taiwan Sōtokufu Keimukyoku, Taiwan Sōtokufu keisatsu enkakushi, Vol. 2, 746–749.

 In 1897, the colonial government added the position of ‘police physician’ to local government. These were state agents who carried out health policies, investigations, and the practice of medical jurisprudence. Li Tengyue, Taiwansheng tongzhigao, zhenshizhi weishengpian, 57–60.

 Lo, Doctors within Borders, 52–54.

 Takagi, ‘Nettai shokumin ni seikō no in’; Washizu, Taiwan keisatsu yonjūnen shiwa, 388.

 For details of Japanese colonial medicine in rural Taiwan, see Liu Shiyung, ‘Medical reform in colonial Taiwan’, 109–122.

 The ratios were 1:1,312 in 1906 and 1:1,101 in 1940; see Liu Shiyung, ‘Yijiusanling niandaiqian Rijushiqi Taiwanyixuedi tezhi’, 127–129.

 Takagi, ‘Nettai shokumin ni seikō no in’.

 ‘Jitai ni okeru shutō seisaku’ (‘On the reality of cowpox vaccination policy’), in Taiwan shiryōkai, Taiwan shiryō kōhō, no page number.