With a reflection on the grand quantitative analysis in previous historical investigations, microhistory came into being in Italy in the 1960s and the 70s. Microhistory is, in principle, the intensive historical investigation of a relatively well defined smaller object. Notwithstanding, it still has the ambition to draw a larger picture of the history. Microhistory is also characterized by its preference to the exceptional individuals or phenomena, its "narrative" style and the delicate way it deals with historical sources. Essentially, microhistory endeavors to bring the individual's role, the concrete life as well as the diversity and complexity of history to the historical writing. At first, microhistory did not have intersection with the medical history. Nevertheless, the history of medicine echoes microhistory in bringing the concrete and vivid life beings to history. Mainly due to this similarity, historical surveys on medicine from the perspective of microhistory are increasing and gradually develop into a remarkable trend in the international historical academy from the 1980s onwards. As the microhistory is rising and its influence is expanding, the microhistorical approach has been practiced to a certain extent in the historical writings on medicine in China. Concentrating on an individual person, a single event, a particular drug or a specific concept, there already have some studies conduct intensive historical investigation on a small scale. A small part of these researches, for example, those of Chang Che-Chia, Li Shang-jen and etc. could be regarded as perfect examples of microhistory. However, no relevant research is carried out explicitly under the heading of microhistory, instead, they are the offspring of the "new history". Besides, most of these researches could not be regarded as real microhistories, strictly speaking. They do not practice microhistory consciously and they have a long way to go to improve the delicacy of the analysis, to reinforce the narrative style and to grasp the social context of the individual or the event (the link between micro and macro levels). Nevertheless, these studies anyway indicate the invisible influence of microhistory and have paved a way for the future microhistorical investigations on medicine. We believe that microhistory is an undercurrent about to emerge in the field of Chinese medical history. It is the right time to advocate and promote the self-conscious microhistorical investigation, promptly and strongly, while updating the ideas and methods of it to make it a dominant trend rather than an undercurrent in the studies of Chinese medical history. Its rise would not only display the value and significance of microhistory in a better way, but also would help medical history to realize its core idea of history of life, therefore to propel our inquiry into Chinese medical history.
China ; *Historiography ; *History of Medicine

Microhistory, first developed in the 1970s, is the study of the past on a very small scale applying zoom-in methodology. Although microhistory had been introduced to Korea during the late 1990s, there still exists much of misunderstanding and confusions surrounding its nature. Microhistory is to be distinguished from the monographs which deal with petty subject, or from the history of everyday life, and from the case studies. In the field of the history of medicine, there are not many microhistories proper. Several works that claim to utilize microhistorical approach, could not be categorized as microhistory because they carry strong characteristics of macrohistory, specifically those of the disciplinary history or the case studies. The well known work of Harold J. Cook, Trials of an Ordinary Doctor, is not an exception. These studies fail to materialize the critical mind of microhistory that pursues to write a history from below and to restore the agency of obscure people. However, Guido Ruggiero's "The Strange Death of Margarita Marcellini," David Cressy's Travesties and Transgressions in Tudor and Stuart England, and Laurel Thatcher Ulrich's A Midwife's Tale clearly demonstrate the attributes, characteristics, and methodologies of microhistory. These studies well display the emphasis of microhistory, which reveal the complexity of early modern medicine, and the complicated function of individual relationships within each and every social setting. Recently, some scholars begin to suggest that the rigid definition of microhistory should be softened, arguing that there could be various types of microhistory. The history of medicine has many advantage of aptly applying many virtues of microhistory: the de-territoriality of diseases, the peculiar elements of the training and practice in hospitals and medical schools which call for anthropological survey, and the possibility of utilizing doctor's records that contain the confessions of the patients. Also, medical historians need to expand the scope of medical provider for their analysis, incorporating pseudo-medical doctor. The essential property of microhistory should be found in its request for various new subjects and fresh perspectives.
*Historiography ; *History of Medicine ; *Physicians ; Republic of Korea

Kim Doo-jong, the founder of the history of medicine in Korea, was born on 2nd March, 1896. After finishing his primary education in his home town, he went to Seoul to receive a higher education. He entered Keijo Medical College in 1918. However, at the end of his first year, he participated in the 3 . 1 movement which protested against Japanese harsh rule over Korea. On account of his participation in the movement, he was forced to leave the college which was run by the Japanese colonial government. Then he went to Japan to enter Kyoto Municipal Medical College, from which college he graduated in 1924. After the graduation, he went to Beijing to work in a hospital run by Japanese. Having felt uncomfortable about the situation in Beijing, he moved to Manchuria, where he opened his private clinic and saw patients for 7 years. As the life as a clinician did not satisfy him, he gave up his practice, and determined to devote himself to the study of history of medicine. He was 43 years old when he started studying history of medicine at the Dong Ah Institute, an affiliated research institute of Manchuria Medical College founded by Japanese. The institute had a large and magnificent collection of ancient texts of oriental medicine. He set on historical studies on the oriental medicine from the perspective of the Western medicine. His doctorial dissertation was about anatomy in oriental medicine. He intended to continue his study on organology, myology, etc., but the sudden end of the World War II made him return to Korea. This meant that he could not make access to the large collection of the institute, and his themes of the research had to be changed. On returning to Korea, he established the Department of the History of Medicine in Seoul National University, which was the only and the first one of its kind. He wrote History of Korean Medicine, which still remains one of the most important works on the history of Korean medicine. He was very energetic and active in his academic activities even during his late years. He passed away on 18th May 1988 at the age of 92.
English Abstract ; *Historiography ; History of Medicine, 20th Cent. ; Japan ; Korea

BACKGROUND: Breast reconstruction refers to the rebuilding of a woman's breast using autologous tissue or prosthetic material to form a natural-looking breast. It is increasingly offered to women undergoing mastectomy for breast cancer. However, there is no systematic analysis available for the expanding area of research on breast reconstruction. METHODS: A bibliometric method was used to obtain a view of the scientific production about breast reconstruction by data extracted from the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI). Specific parameters were retrieved from the ISI. Articles about breast reconstruction were analyzed to obtain a view of the topic's structure, history, and document relationships using HistCite software. Trends in the most influential publications and authors were analyzed. RESULTS: The number of articles was constantly increasing. Most highly cited articles described the methods of flap construction in the surgery. Other highly cited articles discussed the psychological or emotional aspects of breast reconstruction, skin sparing mastectomy, and breast reconstruction in the irradiated breast. CONCLUSIONS: This was the first breast reconstruction scientometric analysis, representing the characteristics of papers and the trends of scientific production. A constant increase in the number of breast reconstruction papers and also the increasing number of citations shows that there is an increasing interest in this area of medical science. It seems that most of the research in this field is focused on the technical aspects of surgery.
Bibliometrics ; Breast ; Breast Neoplasms ; Female ; Historiography ; Humans ; Mammaplasty ; Mastectomy ; Research Design ; Skin

Since microhistory's approach to the past is based on an understanding of and a sympathy for the concrete details of human lives, its area of interests overlaps with the history of medicine and medical humanities, which examine illness and health. If we put a specific region and society in a specific period under a microscope and increase the magnifying power, we can understand the numerous network connections among the body, illness management, and medicine and how multilayered were the knowledge and power applied to them. And this approach of using microhistory to illuminate medical history can be more effective than any other historical approach. This article focuses on Yi Mun-gon's extensive volumes of Mukchaeilgi (Mukchae's diary) in approaching medical history from the perspective of microhistory. Simply defined, this work is a Confucian scholar-doctor's diary. Its author, Yi Mun-gon, played the role of a Confucian doctor, although not professionally, during his 23-year exile, after serving in a high governmental office on the senior grade of the third court rank. Thanks to this extensive and detailed diary, we can now get adetailed andthorough picture of his medical practice in the Songju region, 270 kilometers southeast of Seoul, where he was exiled. This article aims to understand the state of medical practice in the Songju region in the 16thcentury through the"zoom-in" method adopted by microhistory. In particular, I will focus on the following three aspects: 1)Yi Mun-gon's motivation for and method of medical study, 2)the character of Yi Mun-gon'spatient treatment as hwarin (the act of life-saving), and 3) the plural existence of various illness management methods, including pyongjom (divination of illness), sutra-chanting, exorcism, and ch'oje (ritual toward Heaven). All three aspects are closely related to Confucianism. First, Yi Mun-gon decided to acquire professional-level medical knowledge in order to practice the Confucian virtue of filial piety. He sharpened his medical knowledge during the process of caring for his ill mother. In Confucian Choson society, a patient was encouraged to be deeply involved in the process of his or her medical treatment and the space of clinical treatment was not an exclusive domain for the doctor, but for public discussion, where both doctor and patient participated in making the best medical choices. In this atmosphere, a patient's family members would also naturally learn the clinical process, not unlike today's interns learning from renowned doctors. Second, after studying medicine up to a professional level, Yi Mun-gon administered the "life-saving" medicine to many people, yet he did not open his doors to all individuals. His medicine was practiced within his social network of blood, regional, and intellectual relations, where priority was established according to the level of closeness to himself, according to Confucian ideology. Nevertheless, because he did partially accept patients outside of these networks, his practice setin motion the symbolic system of Confucian ideal of universal "life-saving." Third, in the Songju region during the 16thcentury, various methods of treating illnesses-such as medicine, divination, sutra-chanting, exorcism, and kumyongsisik (life-saving, food-offering ritual)-co-existed and were selected according to individual conditions. Confucianism did not want to either acknowledge or outright reject most of these methods, except for officially acknowledged medicine, at that time. In fact, this co-existence was inevitable because there was not one entirely effective means of curing illness at that time. Also, the system of Confucian ideology was not powerful enough to enforce what it championed. On the contrary, behind the outer austerity of Confucian society, people sought out unorthodox methods, such as exorcism, Buddhism, and Taoism-ironically, in order to practice the important Confucian values of filial piety and patrilineage in the face of their parents' or sons'illnesses. It was only after the emergence of modern ideology and methodology of hygiene, which had the ability to control epidemics and prioritize the preservation of the life of individuals and the population, following the opening of the port in the late 19th century, that this pluralistic culture for illness management became much less prevalent.
China ; Confucianism/history ; Historiography ; History, 16th Century ; Korea ; *Physician-Patient Relations ; Physicians/*history

This thesis is a research how the medical history described and organized in the Korean history textbook to compare the 7th educational program from 2002 to the 6th educational program from 1994-2001 in Korea. The medical history is divided into two parts as social system, science and technology but so small amount. In addition, it is impossible to study medical history in its own program. And we can't find any significant difference between the 6th edition and the 7th edition in the state Korean History textbook. In the Korean Modern and Contemporary History textbook, we can find more abundant and systematical approach from some textbooks published by Joongang and Geumsung company than 6th edition Korean History. The change of textbook system to authorized textbook system makes some advance. However four other books don't show much improvement. On the other hand, the contents are so much devoted into the introduction of medical system and books even in the advanced textbooks. Therefore we have to make the students to understand the life of the past and the present with the concrete contents and intimating of the living history. Besides medical historians have to participate in the process to publish the textbook.
Dissertations, Academic/*history ; *Historiography ; History, 20th Century ; History, 21st Century ; Korea ; Textbooks/*history

Authors got the following information on the present state of the education on the history of medicine in the Korean medical schools through analyzing the responses of the medical schools to the questionnaires that we sent and the related parts of The Present State of Medical Education in Medical Schools, 1994 (published by The Committee of Deans of Korean Medical Schools). In 1994, 27 of 32 medical schools (except Kon-kuk, Pusan, Yonsei, Inje and Chungnam Medical Schools) offered 41 lectures of the related subjects, of which 'History of Medicine' and 'Introduction to Medicine' were offered mainly to the premedical students, and 'Medical Ethics' largely to junior or senior students. And we found that the lectures varied widely in lecture-hours, credits, the specialties of the instructors(most of the lectures were conducted by non-medical historians), and so on. In the latter part of this paper (based on the discussions at the 1st Workshop for the Improvement of the Education on the History of Medicine held on the 9th of February 1995) which was focused on the goals and objectives of the lectures, credits and lecture-hours of the course, ideal style and method of the course operation, contents of the lecture, authors stressed the topic-oriented lecture and the voluntary participation of the students in the courses.
Education, Medical/*history ; English Abstract ; *Historiography ; History of Medicine, 20th Cent. ; Korea ; Schools, Medical/*history

Miki Sakae was a Medical historian, who is well known for his studies of Korean medicine. He authored the renowned trilogy which dealt with subjects of Korean medicine and diseases, namely the (History of Korean Medicine and of Diseases in Korea), (Bibliography of Korean Medical Books), and (The Chronological Table of Medical Events in Korea), during the Japanese Occupation period. He was born in 1903 in Osaka, Japan, and graduated from the Kyushu College of Medicine. In 1928 he was assigned to the Gyeongseong Imperial University's College of Medicine as a professor, and also served as Chief of the Suweon Provincial Hospital while he was staying in Korea. During the 18-year period of his stay, he widely collected medical books of Korea and also thoroughly studied them. He returned to Japan in 1944 due to the illness of his father, but continued his studies of Korean medicine, and in 1955 published the (History of Korean Medicine and of Diseases in Korea) for the first time. Following such accomplishment, (Bibliography of Korean Medical Books) was published in 1956, the next year, and finally (The Chronological Table of Medical Events in Korea) was published a few decades later, in 1985. Since the 1950s, aside of continuing to study and author the history of Korean medicine, he had also engaged himself in a joint effort associated with the members of the Medical History Association of Japan (which also included the alumni of the Kyushu College of Medicine) in a group study of Huseya Soteki the first Japanese Experimental Physiologist. He also attempted at establishing an academic branch which could be referred to as Experimental Historical Studies of Medicine, by recreating the experiments of Huseya Sotek with his own son.Later he also expanded his interest and studies to the medical history of the world and also the area of Medical Ethics. But his ultimate interest and passion were always targeted at the Medicine of Korea, and the one consistent position he maintained during his entire life regarding the Korean medicine, was that 'One can only talk about the medicine of China and Japan when he or she is well versed in the medicine of Korea'. And his lifetime achievement, (History of Korean Medicine and of Diseases in Korea) was authored upon the basis established by such conviction and philosophy. First, in this book the perspective of Cultural Transmission, which considers the flow of cultural qualities and assets to be ordinarily flowing from highly developed regions to less developed ones, was firmly maintained.
Medicine, Oriental Traditional/*history ; Korea ; History, 20th Century ; *History of Medicine ; Historiography

The objective of this paper is to chronologically investigate his life as follows: (i) how Henry Sigerist(1891-1957) became interested in medical history, (ii) how he succeeded Karl Sudhoff(1853-1938) as professor of the history of medicine in the University of Leipzig, (iii) why he came to the Johns Hopkins in 1932, (iv) what he did for health care reform in the U. S. and Canada, (v) why he returned to his motherland in 1947, and (vi) how health professions have been globally influenced by his life. Based on the solid academic scholarship of medical history and sociology, Sigerist was energetically engaged in health care reform. What distinguished his social activism from other health care reforms is that whereas most health care reformers take the positivism-centered perspective to transform the existing health care system, Sigerist integrated historical vision with sociologically pedagogic mission to pursue health care progress.
English Abstract ; Germany ; *Historiography ; *History of Medicine ; History of Medicine, 20th Cent. ; Politics ; Professional Practice/*history ; Sociology/*history ; Switzerland ; United States

Scientific papers on the history of psychiatric diagnosis presented at the 16th International Taniguchi Symposium for Comparative History of Medicine-East and West which was held in 1991 in Japan were briefly reviewed and discussions and comments interchanged in this meeting were introduced with some personal appreciation that the meeting was excellently organized and enormously successful. Particularly. the papers of medical historians and the expert in specific area like Indian medicine from North America and Europe were highly instructive. The informal gathering in the evening had offered a fascinating original report such as an old documentary film about Imu. a Japanese culture bound syndrome. One very important point was raised in .this review that the comparisons between the Medicine-East and the West particularly the translation of the Eastern medical descriptions of mental illness into the modern Western psychiatric terms should be very cautiously carried out because by the crude identification of one medical system with the other system the uniqueness of the illness in a specific time and in a specific place might easily be overlooked. For both Japanese and Korean traditional medicine share with Chinese traditional medicine and yet they preserve their uniqueness, a small group study far comparative East Asian medicine was suggested for the more elaborated clarification of medical terms.
Americas ; Asia ; Congresses/*history ; Diagnosis ; English Abstract ; Europe ; Historiography ; History of Medicine, 20th Cent. ; Japan ; Korea ; Philosophy, Medical/*history ; Psychiatry/*history