Shifting Definitions: Japanese Physicians and Changing Disease Categories for Cholera in the Meiji Period, 1868–1912

Shifting Definitions: Japanese Physicians and Changing Disease Categories for Cholera in the Meiji Period (1868-1912) Roberto Padilla II Assistant Professor University of Toledo, Ohio (614) 625-6596 roberto.padilla@utoledo.edu In the Meiji period the adaptation of Western medicine to Japanese Society was a central feature of Japan's drive to modernize. Scientific medicine, based on laboratory studies in Europe, provided Japanese physicians with a system of inquiry based on rational proofs that promised easy entry into the ranks of "civilized" nations for any state that could demonstrate mastery of its methodology. Scientific medicine also introduced new tools related to disease categories, hygiene, quarantine protocols and an understanding of disease pathology that allowed Japanese physicians to draw distinctions between a "modern" Japan and nearby Asian states. In the pages of Japanese medical journals of the period Japanese physicians used a variety of disease categories to refer to cholera. These included koreri, kaku-ran, simple cholera, pernicious cholera, Asiatic cholera, cholera, gastro-intestinal catarrh and acute gastro-intestinal catarrh. Each of these categories described cholera in relation to particular scientific and medical protocols and within specific social contexts. Disease categories offered the Japanese medical community one way it could communicate its perceptions and biases regarding the Asian continent. The shifting categories related to cholera give a clear insight into how Japanese physicians viewed China and Korea as dangerous epidemiological spaces.