Hiro Fujimoto, Aya Homei, and Ellen Gardner Nakamura, eds., Medical Women in the Japanese Empire: Sources and Critique (London: Taylor & Francis, 2025)
10.13081/kjmh.2026.35.301
- Author:
Jiyoung PARK
1
Author Information
1. Department of Medical Humanities and Social Medicine, College of Medicine, Jeonbuk National University
- Publication Type:Book Review
- From:Korean Journal of Medical History
2026;35(1):301-312
- CountryRepublic of Korea
- Language:Korean
-
Abstract:
This review examines Medical Women in the Japanese Empire: Sources and Critique (2025), edited by Hiro Fujimoto, Aya Homei, and Ellen Gardner Nakamura, situating it within the recent historiography on gender and medicine in East Asia. The volume explores how women entered and developed careers in a wide range of health-related professions across the Japanese Empire, drawing on a broad geographical scope that includes Japan, its colonies, and adjacent regions. Rather than offering a fixed definition, the editors employ the flexible category of “medical women,” foregrounding a diverse set of actors and practices.A central contribution of the book lies in its source-oriented structure, which combines translated primary materials with contextual commentaries. This approach facilitates access to multilingual archives while emphasizing the recovery of individual voices, thereby aligning with oral and biographical methodologies in the history of medicine. The volume proposes three analytical axes—femininity as a double-edged construct, marginality and mobility, and family background—as key factors shaping women’s professional trajectories. Through a range of case studies, these concepts are not only applied but also complicated, revealing internal tensions and the limits of existing interpretive frameworks.This review argues that the book’s significance lies in their elaboration through case studies and in the methodological insights that emerge from this process. At the same time, it identifies several limitations, including the underdeveloped conceptualization of “medical women,” the uneven applicability of femininity across different professions, and the absence of Christian medical missions as a crucial factor in the training of female practitioners in East Asia. Despite these shortcomings, the volume offers a productive framework for reinterpreting existing scholarship and suggests new directions for the study of women, medicine, and empire in the region.
