1.The Trend and Prospect of Studies in the Modern History of Medicine in Korea.
Korean Journal of Medical History 2010;19(1):45-68
The Korean Journal of Medical History published in 1992 provides spaces for publication to medical historians who have been growing increasingly since the 1990s, thereby stimulating studies in the modern history of medicine in Korea. Through research published in the Korean Journal of Medical History and other journals, the course through which medicine in Korea in the modern times has been formed and the content of medicine that composed that course are elucidated. This article concludes that the various research tend to posit the view that the modern history of medicine in Korea evolves through a process of accommodation with Western medicine rather than being a complete transplantation of Western medicine, and describes medicine as it is viewed by consumers rather than the operators of medicine. How government power or colonial power utilized medicine in order to stabilize their rule is also a common theme. Now, it is come time to interrogate the viewpoints and analytical methods of medical history studies. Given that medicine is one area that drives changes in Korea in contemporary times, the outcomes obtained through this field can be sufficiently utilized when studying other areas. For instance, agony over the modernity of missionary medicine being studied recently provides meaningful implications in understanding the modernity of Korea. However, the importance of substantiation should not be overlooked as theories not supported by thorough documentary evidence are weak.
History, 20th Century
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Korea
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Publishing/history
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Research/*history
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Social Change
2.The Formation and Background of Claude Bernard's General Physiology.
Korean Journal of Medical History 2010;19(2):507-552
Claude Bernard, a French physiologist in the nineteenth century, strove to establish experimental physiology as a medical branch and scientific field. In 1854, he started his lecture series on general physiology at the Paris Faculty of Sciences, which was continued at the National Museum of Natural History since 1869 when Bernard's chair was transferred from the Faculty to the Museum. At the Museum, Bernard titled his lecture series the "Phenomena of Life Common to Animals and Plants," which revealed the main characteristic of his general physiology. At that time, physiology was generally considered a medical science which dealt only with the human body. Bernard, on the other hand, came to have the idea that physiology could study the functions of plant, animal, and human bodies in the same manner. Bernard's lectures on general physiology had two distinct phases. At Sorbonne, general physiology was a rather speculative theoretical system. It was mainly because of the fact that he did not have a laboratory at the Faculty of Sciences. There, the lecture dealt only with animal functions, and he had no concern for plant physiology at all. After he moved to the Museum, significant changes occurred. In the new laboratory, general physiology was transformed into a truly experimental science, which dealt with both animals and plants. Protoplasm, a physiological basic unit, replaced tissue, which was basically an anatomical unit that fell short of explaining physiological phenomena. The Museum of Natural History played an important role in this transformation. At the museum, zoologists, botanists, and physiologists worked together, and the peculiar natural history tradition of the institution enabled scientists to study animals and plants at the same time. Although there existed some conflicts between experimentalists and naturalists, Bernard could wisely figure out the problem by asserting that the role of a physiologist was to disclose, by experimentation, the fundamental principles that lay behind the superficial facts of life that were already discovered by natural historians. At the Museum, Bernard could break down the distinction between the animal and plant kingdoms in the domain of experimental physiology, and it can perhaps be considered a step toward the formation of the general science of biology.
Biomedical Research/history
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France
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History, 19th Century
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Humans
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Physiology/*history
3.The Methods of Western Medicine in On Ancient Medicine.
Korean Journal of Medical History 2010;19(1):119-135
The treatise On Ancient Medicine attests that questions of method were being debated both in medicine and in philosophy and is important evidence of cross-discipline methodological controversy. The treatise On Ancient Medicine is the first attempt in the history of Greek thought to provide a detailed account of the development of a science from a starting point in observation and experience. The author of it criticizes philosophical physicians who attempt to systematized medicine by reducing it to the interaction of one or more of the opposites hot, cold, wet, and dry, factors. He regards the theory of his opponents as hypothesis(hypothesis). Medicine has long been in possession of both an arche and a hodos, a principle and a method, which have enabled it to make discoveries over a long period of time. As far as method is concerned, the traditional science of medicine attained the knowledge of the visible by starting from observation and experience, but it recommended the use of reasoning and analogies with familiar objects as a means of learning about the invisible. It also utilized inference from the visible to the visible(epilogismos) and inference from the visible to the invisible(analogismos). The use of analogy as a means of learning about the obscure was also part of thecommon heritage of early philosophy and medicine. But the author's use of the analogical method distinguishes it from Empedocles' well-known analogy comparisons of the eye to a lantern and the process of respiration to the operations of a clepsydra. According to the author, traditional science of medicine used functional analogy like wine example and cheese example to know the function of humors within the body and utilized structured analogy like a tube example and a cupping instrument example to acknowledge an organ or structure within the body. But the author didn't distinguish between the claim that medicine has a systematic method of making discoveries and very different claim that it has a systematic method of treatment. The reason for this is that he thought that discoveries are the end point of the method of investigation and the starting point of the procedures used in treatment.
Drug Therapy/*history
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Greece
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History, 20th Century
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History, 21st Century
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History, Ancient
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Humans
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Learning
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Medicine, Traditional/*history
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Research/history/trends
6.Trends in Research on the History of Medicine in Korea before the Modern Era.
Korean Journal of Medical History 2010;19(1):1-43
Research on the history of medicine in Korea in the form of modern scholarship began with the publication in 1930 of Yi Neunghwa's "A History of the Development of Medicine in Korea." The purpose of the present study lies in surveying studies on the history of medicine in Korea in the past 80 years since the publication of Yi's paper. In terms of periodization, research on the history of medicine in Korea is bifurcated by the publication of two comprehensive histories.i. e., Miki Sakae's A History of Medicine and Disease in Korea (1963) and Kim Du-jong's The Complete History of Medicine in Korea (1966). Indeed, all earlier studies converged in these two books. Because Miki and Kim both had majored in Western medicine and conducted research based on similar perspectives, data, and methods, the two works overlap considerably, and Kim's book, as the later of the two, unfortunately lost the initiative to the former to a considerable extent. As a result of these two scholars' research, it became possible to trace the overall flow of the history of medicine in Korea. Following the publication of works by Miki and Kim and with the advent of the 1980's, research on the history of medicine in premodern Korea was renovated with the emergence of no fewer than some dozen new doctoral degree holders in the field. In fact, these young scholars went beyond surveying trends in each era to expand the scope of specific discussions and topics per era, to delve into the actual contents, and to elucidate the function of medicine in society. The fruits of studies conducted in the past 80 years on the history of medicine in premodern Korea can be summarized as follows. 1) before the 5th century AD: the existence of a comprehensive medical practice in regions inhabited by those considered to be the ancestors of the Korean people; and information on medication including ginseng. 2) 5th-10th centuries: the existence of professional medical posts; the management of medicine by the royal household; institutions for medical education; the import and use of Chinese medical texts; the compilation of independent medical texts; the transmission of medical knowledge to Japan; and the import and export of medicinal ingredients. 3) 10th-14th centuries: public medical organs; medicine focusing on domestic medication; the invitation of medical doctors and the transmission of new medicine from Song China; the inclusion of medicine in the civil service examinations; the compilation of diverse types of Korean medical texts including those on native medicinal ingredients; disaster relief organs; regional medical organs; regional medicinal ingredient tribute system; and the state's measures against infectious diseases. 4) 14th-17th centuries: the consolidation of traditional East Asian medicine; the consolidation of Korean medicine including native medicinal ingredients; the emergence of a medical tradition that stresses the Daoist preservation of health ; and the publication of dozens of types of Chinese and Korean medical texts led by the entral and regional governments. Also noteworthy is the emergence of simple medical texts on emergency relief, pregnancy and childbirth, smallpox, and epidemics ( as well as the dissemination of their vernacular editions. In addition, there were phenomena such as the increasing occupation of the posts of medical officials by the non-aristocratic middling jung'in class; the existence of Confucian scholar-physicians and women physicians; and the compilation of texts on independent external medicine. 5) 17th-19th centuries: the formation of medicinal ingredient markets; the spread of pharmacies throughout the provinces; a vogue for Ming Chinese medical texts; veneration for the Treasured Mirror of Eastern Medicine; the emergence of a positivistic stance toward medical research; a vogue for experiential remedies; interest in Western medicine; compilation of several medical texts on measles; criticism of Chinese traditional medicine and/or Korean traditional medicine; the spread of variolation; attempts to introduce smallpox vaccination ; Korean-Japanese medical exchange through the dispatch of Korean goodwill missions to Japan; a great vogue for the Treasured Mirror of Eastern Medicine in both China and Japan; the emergence of independent medical texts on acupuncture; the successful cultivation and massive export of ginseng; and the birth of the Sasang (4-type) constitutional typology, a native medical tradition.
China
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Emergencies/history
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History, 20th Century
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Humans
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Japan
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Korea
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Language
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Publications/history
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Research/*history
7.History of the Korean medical journals (1945-1995) - principally on the basic science journals.
Korean Journal of Medical History 1998;7(1):99-118
The development of Korean medical journals is summarized as the following: 1) Until the early 1960s there were not basic medical journals except Journal of the Korean Society for Microbiology (first issued in the year of 1958), so researchers of basic medical science had difficulty in publishing their articles. 2) Many of the basic medical journals made their first appearance around the mid-1960s, but the progress was not striking until the mid-1980s. 3) From the mid-1980s most of the journals rapidly developed in the aspect of quality as well as quantity. The increase in the number of issues per year and articles per an issue, and the increment of the articles written in English are remarkably found. The increase in the number of researchers, appropriate education and training, improvement of the research facilities, the growth of research fund, and increment of the international academic exchange are thought to be the main factors of such development. Besides those factors, the devotion of the editors of the journals played the important role.
English Abstract
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History of Medicine, 20th Cent.
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Korea
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Periodicals/*history
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Research/*history
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Science/*history