Woosaeng, meaning "eugenic" in Korean, was a bulletin published by the Korean Eugenics Association in 1934. With detailed review of the contributors to Woosaeng, its publication background and the contents, the characteristics of Korea's eugenic movement in 1930's and its historical implications of public health are studied. Intellectuals, especially some medical doctors educated abroad, played the pivotal role in publishing Woosaeng and leading the eugenic movement in 1930's. Lee Gabsoo, a medical doctor educated in Germany, is identified as the key person in the whole process. Most of contributors including Lee considered medical science, especially genetics, as the foundation of eugenics and had strong confidence in their belief. A variety of eugenic movements and activities, including enactment of the national eugenic law around the world, was introduced to the Korean society through Woosaeng and it reinforced the eugenic activities in Korea. Although colonial Korea at the time was being heavily imposed with Japan's culture, the eugenic activities were also influenced by Germany and the US through the contributors educated oversea. The overall content and tone of Woosaeng, revealed its 'soft' characteristics, yet it also implied its vulnerability to 'hard' eugenics. Korea's eugenic movement around Woosaeng faces turnover right before 'The Go Fast Imperialism' period. The high class intellectuals tamed by Japanese colonial paradigm in eugenics took the lead and ended up having a significant influence upon the activities around Woosaeng. And even after Koreans' liberation from Japan's annexation, they were able to retain their influence in public health area in the Korean society. In summary, Woosaeng guided us to understand the characteristics of Korea's eugenic movement in 1930's and the historical context of public health in Korea. Moreover, Woosaeng provided a large amount of information about the eugenic movements around the world as well as in Korea. It also provided some specific examples about the strategic relationship between medical science and politics in 1930's Korea.
Publications/history ; Public Health/history ; Politics ; Korea ; Japan ; Humans ; History, 20th Century ; Eugenics/*history ; Colonialism/history

Many of the Korean intellectuals resisted against suppression of Japanese Imperialism with the people during the Japanese occupation period. Ryu Sang-Kyu was also one of those intellectuals. Ryu Sang-Kyu was born in Gang-gye of North Pyongan-do on 10th November, 1897. He entered Keijo Medical College as one of the first entering students in 1916. However, at the end of his third year, he participated in the 3.1 Independence Movement of Korea and was suspended from the college which was run by the Japanese on account of his participation. Then moving to Shanghai, he joined Heung Sa Dan, an active patriotic group fighting for independence of Korea. He initiated the provisional government of Korea as a network investigator and he played second string to Ahn Chang-Ho, one of major Korean independence activists for four years. In 1923, following Ahn Chang-Ho's advice, he returned to Keijo Medical College to complete the course. Even in colonial Korea, he continued independence movement and was involved in Dong Woo Hoe, the branch of Heung Sa Dan in Korea. After the graduation of Keijo Medical College in 1927, he had served at the department of surgery in Keijo Medical College. In 1930, he participated in founding of the Korean Medical Association. He also raised public awareness by writing to many articles on hygiene and public health issues in public journals and newspapers. In short, he did his best as an intellectual, a medical doctor, an activist of independence movement until he died from streptococcal infection on 7th July, 1936.
Colonialism/history ; History, 19th Century ; History, 20th Century ; Korea ; Politics ; Public Health/history ; Societies, Medical/history

Studies on medicine in North Korea have suffered from the lack of material and from the lack of reliability of information. So far, studies on North Korean medicine have centered on the health care system, and medical education system based upon the official data and interviews on refugees from North Korea. The author had a travel grant for archive research to National Archive Center II and Library of Congress from Association of Asian Studies in U.S.A. and photocopied volumes of a North Korean medical journal called In-Min-Bo-Gun(People's Health) published in 1949-1950, and 1957-1960 Captured by the U. S. Army during the Korean War and declassified in 1977 the journal volumes are rare and valuable resources for historical study. This study aims to analyze the form and contents of the available volumes of the journal. As an official journal of the Ministry of Health, North Korea, the primary purpose of the journal was to mobilize all the people who worked in medicine and public health, and to make them implement the public health policies of North Korean government. Accordingly, various categories of people wrote and read the journal from high officials to local public health workers. The genre of the articles published in the journal was also various including papers, declarations, speeches, reports, scientific papers, case reports, news, criticism, conte, poem, essays, and many more. This study showed that In-Min-Bo-Gun(People's Health) was at the center of the Hygiene Reform Movement during the Cultural Revolution from 1958-1959 as an important media that connected health workers and the North Korean government.
English Abstract ; Health Education/*history ; History of Medicine, 20th Cent. ; Korea ; Periodicals/*history ; Public Health/*history

After graduating from Severance Medical College in 1916, Chang Sei Kim went to Shanghai to work as a missionary in a adventist hospital. The establishment of the Korean Provisional Government led him to participate in the independence movement. Educating nurses to assist the forthcoming war for independence, he seemed to realize the fact that the health of Koreans would be a key factor for achieving independence. He left for the U.S. to conduct comprehensive research on medicine. Chang Sei Kim was the first Korean to receive a Ph. D. degree of Public Health, graduating from the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health in 1925. He then gained an opportunity to work for Korea as a professor at Severance Medical College. His objective was the 'Reconstruction of the Korean People In Terms of Physical Constitution.' He pointed out that Koreans' weak state of health was a major reason for Korea's colonization. To gain independence, he emphasized that the Korean people should receive education on public health in order to improve the primitive conditions of sanitation. There is little doubt that Chang Sei Kim's ideas developed Heungsadan's views on medicine in terms of its stress on cultivation of ability, especially considering the fact that he was a member of the organization. As a member of the colonized who could not participate in the developing official policy, Chang Sei Kim was not able to implement his ideas fully, because an individual or a private organization could not carry out policy on public health as large a scale as the government did. Never giving up his hopes for Korean independence, he rejected requests to assume official posts in the Government-General. That was why he was particularly interested in the Self-Governing Movement in 1920s Korea. If the movement had attained its goal, he might have worked for the enhancement of sanitary environment as a director of Sanitary Department. His application for funding to establish a hygiene laboratory in Korea was rejected by Rockefeller Foundation, as the policy of foundation was to finance only government institutes, not private ones. Resigning his position at Severance Medical College in 1927, Chang Sei Kim went to Shanghai to work as a Field Director in the Council on Health Education. The council was affiliated with the Rockefeller Foundation and was founded to ameliorate the hygienic situation in China. He was well fitted to the job, because China, like Korea, shared the aim to achieve independence by promoting better health for its people and because he could be appointed as a public officer which could not happen in colonial Korea. To solve the ever-serious problems with tuberculosis in China, he went again to the U. S. to conduct research and raise money for the establishment of a sanitarium. Chang Sei Kim passed away there in 1934 at the age of 42.
Public Health Practice/history ; Public Health Administration/*history ; Korea ; Japan ; Humans ; History, 20th Century ; Health Policy/history ; Health Education/history ; Colonialism/history

This study is to analyze the change of the health insurance policy in the 1970s in relation to social welfare discourse. The public health care in Korea was in very poor condition around the first amendment of the National Health Insurance Act in 1970. Furthermore, due to the introduction of new medical technology, increasing number of big hospitals participating in the medical market, inflation, and other factors, medical expenses skyrocketed and made it hard for ordinary people to enjoy medical services. Accordingly, the social solution to the problem of medical expenses which an individual found hard to deal with became of demand. And as the way to the solution, it was inevitable to consider the introduction of health insurance as social insurance. In this condition, Park regime began to stress the social development from the 1960s. It was to aim to settle various social problems triggered by the rapid industrialization in the 1960s through social development as well as economic development. As the social development was emphasized, the matter of social welfare appeared of importance and led to the first amendment of the National Health Insurance Act in 1970. However, it was impossible for Korean government to enforce a nationwide health insurance. The key issue was how to fund it. Park regime was reluctant to use government fund; it was also hard to burden private companies. Even while the health insurance policy was not determined yet for this reason, the social demand for health insurance became large and large. In particular, in the midst of the first "Oil Shock" which gave a big blow to people's living condition from the late 1973, some reported issues in relation to health service, such as hospitals' rejection of the poor, became a big problem. Coupled with the social demand for a health insurance system, the changes occurred within the medical community was also important. Most of all, hospitals was facing the decrease of the effectiveness of their medical facilities. Therefore, they began to see health insurance as a means of developing potential demand for medical service. In addition, the business world, which already expanded their own corporate welfare for employees from the early 1970s, sharing the idea that it was impossible to keep the issue of public health insurance unsolved, showed an enthusiastic attitude. These factors finally enabled Park regime to adopt the public health insurance system. Likewise, it is critical to understand the establishment of the public health insurance system in Korea through pursuing the process to it. What matters is the discoursive changes as well as the changes in social condition around the establishment, not merely the policy changes per se. Then most people, including decision makers in Park regime, thought of social welfare as a privilege developed countries. Thus, in the 1970s when unbalanced industrialization brought about widening gap between social classes, the employment of a social welfare policy could be recognized as a symbol of an escape from backwardness. In fact, with the introduction of the national health insurance in the 1970s, Park regime could fortify the material fundamental of a social welfare discourse which would be mobilized to strengthen the dichotomous discourse of developedness and backwardness and to dump the social crisis caused by Park regime's industrialization drive on the next generation.
Health Policy/economics/*history ; History, 20th Century ; Humans ; National Health Programs/*history ; Public Health/economics/history ; Social Welfare/economics/*history

The year 2008 marks the 55th anniversary of the graduate public health programme in Singapore. This article traces the evolution of the programme-from the Diploma in Public Health in 1953 to the Master of Public Health in 2007--in response to changing challenges and needs. It also discusses the role Singapore can continue to play in addressing global inequities in access to public health education and in strengthening public health capacity in the region and beyond.
Education, Graduate ; history ; Education, Public Health Professional ; history ; History, 20th Century ; History, 21st Century ; Humans ; Singapore

Koii(Public Doctor) System introduced into Taiwan in 1896 for the purpose of filling up medical vacuum of rural area and therefore spreading modern medical system all over Taiwan, was transplanted in 1913 into Colonial Korea for the same purpose. In terms of system itself Koii system in both areas were almost the same, but quite different in practices. First, Koiis in Taiwan was forced to write concrete medical report every month on the medical situation in the area under jurisdiction, whereas to those in Korea writing monthly report was not so compulsory. This difference resulted in some gaps in the quality of medical statistics of the two areas. Second, Unlike their counterparts in Korea, Koiis in Taiwan organized their own associations both locally and nationally and it helped to build up their own networks and share informations on medical situation including informations on infectious diseases. Third, Koiis in Taiwan formed more harmonious relationship between Taiwanese Police than their counterparts in Korea, which helped them to execute various medical activities in more comfortable environment. Taiwanese People went to medical institutions a lot more frequently than Korean People, and this difference was basically derived from the quite different density of Koii assignment in both areas. Korean People had to spend more time and money to utilize modern medical institutions than Taiwanese People did. The different density of Koii assignment also affected the results of prevention and eradication of infectious diseases; in Taiwan plague and small-pox has been successfully controled, whereas Chosun Government-general was not so successful in controling infectious diseases including small-pox. Small-pox infectee in Korea was about 6 times to Taiwan, and the number of death by small-pox was 9 times to Taiwan. One of the keys to this difference is the different role of Koiis. In Korea, Koiis could do little thing about infectious diseases mainly because of manpower shortage, thus shifting their duties like vaccination onto police officers who was inevitably inferior to doctors in medical terms, whereas vaccination was led by Koiis in Taiwan, with the help of police officers and traditional doctors. The difference between Korea and Taiwan in terms of Koii system and its effect implies that public health network in colonial Taiwan was better organized and more stable than that in colonial Korea, and therefore we should be careful about applying the concept of disciplinary power or modernization theory to colonial medical history of Korea.
Colonialism/*history ; History, 19th Century ; History, 20th Century ; Korea ; Physicians ; Public Health/*history ; Taiwan

This article analyzes the social transformation of Korea's health care policy in the twentieth century from a historical perspective. The whole period under the research is divided into four stages. In the first stage(1900-1945), two major health care policies, public hygiene and population control, were a part of political strategy for consolidating Japanese colonial dominion over Korea. The second stage(1945-1960) is characterized by the division of Korean peninsula and Korean war that resulted in the vicious cycle between massive poverty and social disease. In the third stage(1961-1991), military governments considered the health care system as a 'carrot' for enhancing national security and reinforcing legitimacy of the regime. In the final stage(1992-1999), the state and civil society have been influential agents in shaping forms and contents of health care policy, with the organized medicine relatively neglected. Globalization will have more influence on the arena of health care policy in which three agents would have to negotiate one another. In addition, the organized medicine will have to consider a variety of non-governmental organizations(NGOs) as an inevitable counterpart of policy-making process. in harmonizing the conflicts between public deliberation and professional interests. In the next century, health care policy, along with social welfare, environment and labor policy agendas would constitute a health-related policy regime in which all the participants have to accomplish not medicalization of life but socialization of health care and to diminish the inequity in health among a variety of social class.
English Abstract ; Health Policy/*history ; History of Medicine, 20th Cent. ; Korea ; *Medicine ; Public Health Administration/*history

The Republic of Korea(ROK) and the World Health Organization(WHO) have done many projects successfully from 1949, in which the government of First Republic joined the WHO. However the relation between the ROK and the WHO have not been studied very much so far. The main purpose of this research, which could be done by the support of WHO, is connected with three questions. First research point would be "how could the ROK joined WHO in 1949 and what's the meaning of it? And the what's the difference in the process for the WHO between the ROK of 1949 and the DPRK(Democratic People's Republic of Korea) of 1973?" The first president of the ROK, Rhee Syngman, who had received his Ph. D.(about international politics) from Princeton University in 1910, was strongly interested in joining international institutes like UN, WHO. The ROK that could join WHO on 17 August 1949, with the approval of Assembly on 25 May 1949, was one of the founder members of the Western Pacific Region. By joining WHO, the ROK could get chance to increase the level of public health and its administration in 1950's. But the DPRK manage to became a member of WHO on 19 May 1973 and joined the South-East Asia Region. The joining of DPRK was influenced by the easing of the cold war after the Nixon Doctrine and the joining of the China(People's Republic of China). Second research point would be "What kind of roll did the WHO take in the First Republic?" Yet the public health administration of the First Republic that had been made in the period of US army military government was been strongly influenced by USA, the roll of WHO was also important in the 1950's. Last research point would be "What kind of the projects did the ROK and the WHO take part in during the period of he First Republic? How could evaluate the results?" The ROK and the WHO handled the projects including health services, communicable disease prevention and control, control of noncommunicable diseases, and protection of health. Specially for the efforts to prevent communicable disease, the WHO focused on leprosy, malaria, measles, smallpox, tuberculosis in 1950's. The First Republic could overcome the bad health condition after the Korea War successfully, supported by WHO.
History, 20th Century ; *Politics ; Public Health/*history ; Republic of Korea ; World Health Organization/*history

The state-running medical institutions which had been instituted in the earlier period of the Chosun dynasty substantially downsized during the reconstructing process after the major wars with Japan and Qing dynasty. The downsizing was mainly due to the malfunctioning public financial system; but it was also due to the growth of the private medical market. The growth of the private medical market reoriented the focus of the public health system of the Chosun dynasty from providing treatment for every minor disease to providing the more efficient policy against epidemic. Hwal-in Seo (a temporary local public health center established for epidemic) became a new core of the dynasty's health policy under the phrase of "Ae Rye (saving the rituals)." As the changes of the dynasty's public health policy, the growing private medical market had been admitted into the public domain. Chosun government once had declared Sa Yak Gye (a private mutual-aid group for medicine) illegal and prohibited the private groups to be organized. Instead, with the policy change mentioned above, the government tried to support the private mutual-aid group for medicine while forbidding sales of fake medicine, restraining rise of price of medicine. Especially the Do go merchants often caused the sudden rise of price of medicine by bulk purchasing. Medical practice was reassessed as the period when it was considered as one of the lowest professions had been over. Although the Yangban class still refused to be a professional medical practitioner themselves, they also well understood the value of medicine as a field of study to save human and dismissed negative perception on medicine. Medicine as a field of study and medical practice, which had been underestimated under the ruling system influenced by the Song Confucianism and the status system of the Chosun dynasty, faced a new era. The whole society guaranteed more free practices of the medical practitioners and they were recognized for their works. With the change of social environment, the government officials gradually realized needs to discuss how they could educate and recruit medical practitioners to provide advanced medical treatment and what provisions they had to legislate to ensure the stable supply of the medicine. It is certain that the transformation developed in the medical environment and the changes of the public health policy up to 18th century Chosun dynasty accompanied the emergence of the commercial society. However, the overall social urge was still not enough to induce the actual law-making process. The change of the public health policy and the growth of the private medical market were surely the evidence of the transforming Chosun society; at the same time, they also revealed the immaturity of the medical environment which was not able to lead new health policies.
Health Policy/history ; History, 16th Century ; History, 17th Century ; History, 18th Century ; Humans ; Korea ; Medicine, Korean Traditional/*history ; Private Sector/*history ; Public Health/*history ; State Medicine/history