Agriculture ; education ; history ; History, 20th Century ; Microbiology ; economics ; history ; Penicillins ; history ; Portraits as Topic

This thesis examines a crisis of ginseng capital and the source of crisis during Daehan empire. After the China-Japan war of 1894, the Japanese merchants actively engaged in taking over the ginseng fields, so that ginseng-cultivating Koreans suffered substantial economic losses. After the Russo-Japanese war, the Japanese imperialists undertook the 'Currency Arranging Business'(CAB) in order to set a cornerstone for their invasion of Korea. The CAB eventually provoked a wide depression which in turn produced massive number of Korean merchants going bankrupt. The Kaesong merchants were no exception, since CAB stroke a severe blow on the ginseng industry, which relied heavily on the commercial capitals of the Kaesong merchants. Moreover, the Japanese imperialists broke the previous promise and bought ginseng at a dirt-cheap price, which put ginseng-cultivating Koreans in serious trouble. In order to combat such crisis, ginseng field-owners protested against such injustice by petitioning or stirring up Kaesong popular riot in vain, and consequently the number of ginseng field-owners decreased sharply. A few of the ginseng field-owners survived, and managed to maintain and even flourish more than before. These successful owners were characterized with their strong link with the official circle, utilizing their influence in ginseng industry. Their original background was not identical as some came from the influential families of Kaesong area for generations, while others made their own fortunes and continue to prosper through the difficult times of the late of the Daehan empire period.
Agriculture/economics/*history ; Commerce/economics/*history ; History, 19th Century ; History, 20th Century ; Japan ; Korea ; *Panax ; Riots/history

The pillages of the Korean rural villages by force under the rule of Japanese imperialism resulted in the extreme impoverishment of the Korean agricultural communities. Especially this was accelerated due to starvation, ignorance and the poor sanitary conditions on the part of the Korean farmers. The research institute of agricultural community hygiene founded by a Korean doctor, Young Choon Lee was the beginning of the rural medical institute that contributed greatly to the disease prevention and health improvements of impoverished farmers.
Academies and Institutes/*history ; Agriculture/*history ; Colonialism/*history ; English Abstract ; History of Medicine, 20th Cent. ; Japan ; Korea ; Poverty/*history ; Public Health/*history ; Rural Health/*history ; War/*history

Agriculture ; history ; China ; History, 20th Century ; Microbiology ; history ; Nitrogen Fixation ; Secondary Metabolism

Academies and Institutes ; Agriculture ; education ; history ; Genetics ; history ; History, 20th Century ; Humans ; Plants, Genetically Modified ; growth & development

In this paper, I investigated the influence of Compendium of Materia Medica (CM) on Records for Rural Life of Chosun Gentlemen (RRC), and refuted Miki Sakae's opinion, CM did not have much impact on the Materia Medica in the late period of the Chosun Dynasty. When Li Shizhen published CM, it resulted in a shift of mainstream of Materia Medica in Eastern Asia from Classified Emergency Materia Medica to CM and a new categorizing system of Materia Medica by CM led to the division of Materia Medica into medicine and natural history. It is obvious that doctors of the Chosun Dynasty also adopted the latest achievements of Materia Medica by CM, but so far there have been few studies to clarify this. Seo yugu was a scholar of the Realist School of Confucianism during the late period of the Chosun Dynasty, and RRC is his representative work. RRC is a massive encyclopedia of natural history that covers vast areas of science from agriculture, floriculture, writing and drawing, architecture, diet, and medicine, among others which absorbed the achievements of CM, the best Materia Medica book at that time. Miki Sakae also highly regarded the encyclopedic knowledge of RRC, but devalued the results of Materia Medica. He only described a part of RRC's Materia Medica, nurturing volume, on the view of life nurturing and mentioned that it had been strongly influenced by China. According to this study, a large portion of RRC, especially regarding Materia Medica, depends on CM. Seo yugu had accepted the categorizing system and new medicinal information of CM, at the same time he modified the categorizing system of CM practically by the subject of each volume of RRC. We can find many quotations of CM except the nurturing volume, but other books, Treasured Mirror of Eastern Medicine, Materia Medica for Relief of Famines are also quoted. Furthermore, Seo yugu emphasized the differences of natural environments between Chosun and China, and specified the editing criteria, "to be useful in Chosun." This is the most obvious evidence that Materia Medica of Chosun had not remained in the framework of Treasured Mirror of Eastern Medicine which succeeded Classified Emergency Materia Medica, but had been developed into medicine and natural history based on CM.
Achievement ; Agriculture ; China ; Confucianism ; Diet ; Emergencies ; Far East ; Humans ; Materia Medica ; Natural History ; Starvation ; Writing