Modernization of Community Medicine in Japan: its Continuity and Discontinuity

2019 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 17K01182
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Sociology/History of science and technology
• Research Institution: Senshu University
• Principal Investigator: Hirokawa Waka 専修大学, 文学部, 准教授 (10513096)
• Project Period (FY): 2017-04-01 – 2020-03-31
• Keywords: 地域医療 / 医学史 / 診療録 / 医療アーカイブズ / 梅毒 / 医療史

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This study reexamined the modernization of community medicine in Japan, treating it as a multi-decade process initiated in the late-Tokugawa period. The multiple medical records tell us much about the nature of their medical knowledge, character of diagnostic methods, techniques utilized to manage medical practices, and methods used to standardize the composition and preservation of records around the turn of the century. By using these records, this project examined how a physician trained in Western medicine dealt with regional health problems, in particular the prevalence of syphilis. In addition, by analyzing how another physician, trained in traditional Chinese medicine, managed his practice during the late-Edo and Meiji periods, it revealed that traditional medicine remained influential into the early decades of the 20th century. Ultimately, a comparative analysis demonstrated that different kinds of doctors continued to coexist on the local level during the transitional periods.

Free Research Field

日本近代史

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

本研究では、近世後期までに達成されていた「医療環境」が、近代以降にいかに継承され、あるいは継承されなかったのかという観点から、地域医療を担った医師らが実践した医療の内容そのものを比較・分析し、そこでの医療の質や水準、その地域的差異と時代的変化、患者の医療需給行為の実態、その地域における医療の課題を、開業医の診療録を素材として明らかにした。これによって、福祉国家の主要な要素である医療と公衆衛生のシステム形成を、地域医療の観点から位置づけた。