Historians of science have noted that modern nation-states and capitalism necessitated the systematic creation and implementation of a wide array of knowledge and technologies to produce a more productive and robust population. Commonly labeled as biopolitical practices in Foucauldian sense, such endeavors have often been discussed in the realms of public hygiene, housing, birth control, and child mortality, among others. This article is an attempt to extend the scope of the discussion by exploring a relatively understudied domain of nutrition science as a critical case of social engineering and intervention, specifically during and after World War I in the case of Japan. Research and dissemination of knowledge on food and health in Japan, like other industrializing nation-states, centered on new public hygiene initiatives since the late nineteenth-century. However, in the aftermath of WWI, or more precisely, after the Rice Riots of 1918, a new trend began to dominate the discourse of nutrition and health. In the face of wartime inflation and the resultant nation-wide riots, physicians and social scientists alike began to view the food choice and budget issue as a solution to the middle class crisis. This new perception drew on the conceptual framework to understand food, metabolism, and cost in the language of quantifiable nutrition vis-à-vis monetary values. By analyzing how specific nutritional knowledge was translated into the tenets for public campaigns to reform everyday life, this paper ultimately sheds light on the institutionalization of a new area of research, nutrition (eiyō) in Japan.
Budgets ; Capitalism ; Child ; Child Mortality ; Contraception ; Eating* ; Housing ; Hygiene ; Inflation, Economic ; Institutionalization ; Japan* ; Metabolism ; Nutritional Sciences* ; Rationalization ; Riots ; World War I

No abstract available.
Colonialism* ; Leprosy*

In this article, I looked at the life of Yun Il-sun, a representative medical scientist of modern Korea, and examined the following problems. First, I took note of the position of the Korean people in the academic system of the Japanese colonial empire and restored the life of Yun Il-sun as specifically as possible. Yun was educated among Japanese people from elementary school to university. Although he received the best education at Old System High School and Imperial University and grew to be a prominent medical scientist, he could not overcome his identity as a colonized. Yun Il-sun, who moved from Keijo Imperial University to Severance Union Medical College, involved in activities founding of the Korean Medical Association and the Korean Medical Journal. Second, I the meaning of ‘culture’ to the intellectuals in the periphery. Old System High School and Imperial University where Yun Il-sun was educated were the hotbed of ‘culturalism.’ Yun's college days were the heyday of Taisho Democracy, and students were attracted to Marxism, Christian poverty movement, Buddhist cultivation movement and so on. Yun sought to overcome the ideological of young people through the acquisition of ‘culture.’ The ‘culture’ emphasized by Yun had an enlightenment characteristic that emphasized education, but it also functioned as a‘identity culture of educated elites.’ Third, I used the concept of ‘colonial academism’ and examined the aspects and characteristics of the colonial-periphery academic field, focusing on medicine. Yun Il-sun was a Korean professor at the Keijo Imperial University. He founded an academic society and published an academic journal for Koreans. He attempted to reproduce scholarship by doctoral dissertations. At the same time, several facts show that he was also in the affected area of ‘colonial academism’: the fact that he was kicked out of the Keijo Imperial University, the fact that the Korean Medical Association and the Korean Medical Journal were banned by Governor General, the fact that his students asked for doctoral degrees from Kyoto Imperial University where he studied. Yun Il-sun crossed the limits of ‘colonial academism’ and acted as the agent of empire. This was made possible by the characteristics of the academic discipline of medicine, the environment of the Severance Union Medical College, and personal traits of superior ability and indifference to politics. I the postcolonial evolution of the ‘colonial academism’ and ‘culturalism.’ The mix of continuity and discontinuity from ‘colonial academism’ and the hybrid of Japanese academism and American academism, the Korean characteristics of ‘postcolonial academism.’ Yun tried to harmonize the American academism with the Japanese academism and the purity of academism. This effort was revealed as an emphasis on basic medicine and natural sciences. As combined with culturalism and indifference to politics, he was recognized as the symbol of ivory tower and academism.
Asian Continental Ancestry Group ; Colon ; Communism ; Democracy ; Education ; Fellowships and Scholarships ; Humans ; Japan* ; Korea ; Natural Science Disciplines ; Pathology ; Politics ; Poverty

BACKGROUND: Due to the asymmetry of information and knowledge and the power of bureaucrats and medical professionals, it is not easy for citizens to participate in health care policy making. This study analyzes the case of the insured organization participating in the Health Insurance Policy Committee (HIPC) and provides a basis for discussing methods and conditions for better public participation. METHODS: Qualitative analysis was conducted using the in-depth interviews with the participants and document data such as materials for HIPC meetings. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with purposively sampled six participants from organizations representing the insured in HIPC. The meanings related to the factors affecting participation were found and categorized into major categories. RESULTS: The main factors affecting participating in the decision making process were trust and cooperation among the participants, structure and procedure of governance, representation and expertise of participants, and contents of issues. Due to limited cooperation, participants lacked influence in important decisions. There was an imbalance in power due to unreasonable procedures and criteria for governance. As the materials for meetings were provided inappropriate manner, it was difficult for participants to understand the contents and comments on the meeting. Due to weak accountability structure, opinions from external stakeholders have not been well received. The participation was made depending on the expertise of individual members. The degree of influence was different depending on the contents of the issues. CONCLUSION: In order to meet the values of democracy and realize the participation that the insured can demonstrate influence, it is necessary to have a fair and reasonable procedure and a sufficient learning environment. More deliberative structure which reflects citizen's public perspective is required, rather than current negotiating structure of HIPC.
Consumer Participation ; Decision Making ; Delivery of Health Care ; Democracy ; Insurance, Health ; Learning ; Negotiating ; Policy Making ; Social Responsibility

Altruism ; Canada ; China ; Communism ; General Surgery ; history ; History, 20th Century ; Humans ; Philately ; Politics ; Surgeons

This article examines the life of Lee Jungsook, a Korean nurse, as a independence activist during the Japanese colonial period. Lee Jungsook(1896-1950) was born in Bukchung in Hamnam province. She studied at Chungshin girl's high school and worked at Severance hospital. The characteristics and culture of her educational background and work place were very important factors which influenced greatly the life of Lee Jungsook. She learned independent spirit and nationalism from Chungshin girls' high school and worked as nurse at the Severance hospital which were full of intense aspiration for Korea's independence. Many of doctors, professors and medical students were participated in the 3.1 Independence Movement. Lee Jungsook was a founding member of Hyulsungdan who tried to help the independence activists in prison and their families and worked as a main member of Korean Women's Association for Korean Independece and Kyungsung branch of the Korean Red Cross. She was sent to jail by the Japanese government for her independence activism. After being released after serving two years confinement, she worked for the Union for Women's Liberation as a founding member. Lee Joungsook was a great independence activist who had a nursing care spirit as a nurse.
Colonialism/*history ; *History of Nursing ; History, 20th Century ; Japan ; Korea

This paper aims to reveal how Hamheung Medical College in North Korea kept up its faculty with the trend of a new political system. The time period consists of three series of evaluations that occurred between the start of a reformation action in 1946 and the establishment of the regime in 1948. At the time, it was difficult to secure college faculty in the medical field, because of a serious shortage of medical personnel. Moreover, the problem in the recruitment of faculty at the medical college grew bigger since the members were required to have a high level of political consciousness. Then how did Hamheung Medical College accomplish this ideal securing of faculty that possessed political ideology and medical expertise? For the first time, a faculty evaluation at the local level was carried out and got rid of a few pro-Japanese or reactionary factions but maintained most of the faculty. Although academic background and research career of the faculty were considered, securing of the manpower in terms of number was crucial for the reconstruction of a professional school level. At the second time, as the central education bureau's intervention tightened the censorship, most of the faculty were evaluated as unqualified. Indeed, it was difficult to satisfy the standard of professionalism which emphasized a high level of academic career and political thought that included affiliation of Workers' Party of North Korea. The Medical College could not find faculty that could replace those professors and therefore, most of them maintained their faculty positions. Since then, the faculty who received excellent evaluations led the school at the very front. At the third time, the Medical College itself led the evaluations and implemented more relaxed standards of political ideology and medical expertise. Faculty who were cooperative to the reformation actions that North Korea carried forward or had working experience at the hospital and health service received a high level of recognition. Accordingly, the Medical College expanded itself by securing many professors, but also embodied a large gap of academic and ideological levels between them. Hence, the political ideology and medical expertise, which were set forth as the requirements for faculty, were constructed in the space of political ideal and social reality. Despite the high criteria the North Korean Government made, Hamheung Medical College's faculty fell below the average in terms of ideological and academic standards. As a way to compensate this, professors who greatly satisfied the both virtues were placed as leaders and, for supporting them, professors who taught the general education curriculum were recruited largely. And also, it appointed a large number of medical doctors who accumulated experiences in the field as new professors. Nevertheless, the Medical College struggled to raise the quality of medical education and was unable to prevent a part of its faculty from leaving to South Korea in the time of the Korean War. Thus, the political and academic virtues of the faculty at that time were not just simply about the professor individuals but were interrelated with the medical education and health care system in North Korea.
Consciousness ; Curriculum ; Delivery of Health Care ; Democratic People's Republic of Korea* ; Education ; Education, Medical ; Health Services ; Humans ; Korea ; Korean War ; Political Systems ; Virtues

This paper explores the history of the biomedical construction of women's bodies as social bodies in the formation of colonial modernity in Korea. To do so, I engage with Michel Foucault's concepts of governmentality and biopolitics and the postcolonial history of medicine that has critically revisited these Foucauldian notions. These offer critical insights into the modern calculation of population and the biomedical gaze on female bodies on the Korean Peninsula under Japan's colonial rule (1910-1945). Foucauldian reflections on governmentality and colonial medicine can also shed light on the role of biomedical physicians in the advancement of colonial biopolitics. Biomedical physicians-state and non-state employees and colonizers and colonized alike - served as key agents investigating, knowing, and managing, as well as proliferating a discourse about, women's bodies and reproduction during Japan's empire-building. In particular, this paper sheds light on the processes by which Korean women's bodies became the objects of intense scrutiny as part of an attempt to quantify, as well as maximize, the total population in late colonial Korea. In the aftermath of the establishment of the Manchurian puppet state in 1932, Japanese imperial and colonial states actively sought to mobilize Koreans as crucial human resources for the further penetration of Japan's imperial holdings into the Chinese continent. State and non-state medical doctors meticulously interrogated, recorded, and circulated knowledge about the sexual and conjugal practices and reproductive life of Korean women in the agricultural sector, for the purposes of measuring and increasing the size, health, and vitality of the colonial population. At the heart of such medical endeavors stood the Investigative Committee for Social Hygiene in Rural Korea and Japan-trained Korean medical students/physicians, including Ch'oe Ug-sok, who carried out a social hygiene study in the mid-1930s. Their study illuminates the ways in which Korean women's bodies entered the modern domain of scientific knowledge at the intersection of Japan's imperialism, colonial governmentality, and biomedicine. A critical case study of the Investigative Committee's study and Ch'oe can set the stage for clarifying the vestiges as well as the reformulation of knowledge, ideas, institutions, and activities of colonial biopolitics in the divided Koreas.
Colonialism/*history ; Female ; Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice ; History, 20th Century ; *Human Body ; Humans ; Japan ; Korea ; Politics ; Reproduction ; Sexual Behavior ; Women/*history

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

Very little information is available regarding psychiatry in North Korea, which is based on the legacy of Soviet psychiatry. This paper reviews the characteristics of psychiatry in former socialist countries and discusses its implications for North Korean psychiatry. Under socialism, psychiatric disorders were attributed primarily to neurophysiologic or neurobiological origins. Psychosocial or psychodynamic etiology was denied or distorted in line with the political ideology of the Communist Party. Psychiatry was primarily concerned with psychotic disorders, and this diagnostic category was sometimes applied based on political considerations. Neurotic disorders were ignored by psychiatry or were regarded as the remnants of capitalism. Several neurotic disorders characterized by high levels of somatization were considered to be neurological or physical in nature. The majority of "mental patients" were institutionalized for a long periods in large-scale psychiatric hospitals. Treatment of psychiatric disorders depended largely on a few outdated biological therapies. In former socialist countries, psychodynamic psychotherapy was not common, and psychiatric patients were likely to experience social stigma. According to North Korean doctors living in South Korea, North Korean psychiatry is heavily influenced by the aforementioned traditions of psychiatry. During the post-socialist transition, the suicide rate in many of these countries dramatically increased. Given such mental health crises in post-socialist transitional societies, the field of psychiatry may face major challenges in a future unified Korea.
Biological Therapy ; Capitalism ; Democratic People's Republic of Korea ; Hospitals, Psychiatric ; Humans ; Korea ; Mental Health ; Neurotic Disorders ; Psychotherapy, Psychodynamic ; Psychotic Disorders ; Social Stigma ; Socialism ; Suicide