ABSTRACT
This study analyzes the annual reports of CMB in order to examine CMB’s assistance of Korea. CMB originally assisted medical education in China, and it turned to assist Asia with changes in the international situation. This paper examines three periods spanning from 1953 to 1980 when Korea received CMB assist. The first period was from 1953 to 1962, when Korea received help with material resources that were lacking after the Korean War. The second period was from 1963 to 1972 during which the scale of assistance further expanded. Additionally, Seoul National University began to have human resources with the necessary support for education and research with the assistance from CMB. The third period was from 1973 to 1980, when the CMB newly established the overall direction of aid, the contents of assistance for Korea also changed. Throughout this period, Korean medicine was able to lay the foundation for independence, and public health, including community medicine, came to be considered as an important aspect of society.
ABSTRACT
This paper analyzes the research process of Kim Chung Yong (henceforth referred to as KIM), who presented the hepatitis B vaccine in South Korea. In South Korea, which had been called the Hepatitis Kingdom, KIM developed a vaccine material for hepatitis B. Through his research achievements, South Korea, emerged from a country ignorant of hepatitis to a country with a hepatitis B vaccine. It is not easy to achieve remarkable results in developing countries where scientific development is lagging. This environment, however, helped KIM achieve his research. This article explains that the two circumstances affected his achievement in his research.First, KIM got a chance to study in the U.S. when he was his starting as a researcher. In the 1960s, the scientific and medical education environment in Korea was still poor. KIM left for Harvard University with the support of CMB, where he was able to advance his studies. This experience was an opportunity to further enhance his research skills. Second, Korea’s poor health and hygiene environment in the 1970s worked in favor of verifying the effectiveness of vaccine materials he developed. South Korea, where hepatitis B was prevalent, became a good research site to secure enough test subjects. KIM also used blood sellers to find out the effects of the vaccine material he developed. Blood sellers are people who earn their living by selling their own blood and were commonly found in Korea at that time. The situation in Korea in the 1970s with prevailing hepatitis and the presence of blood sellers played an important role in KIM's research. His research on vaccine development for hepatitis B was hard to imagine in the scientific research environment of South Korea at the time. However, it was also this context and environment of South Korea at the time that enabled his achievement of developing a hepatitis B vaccine.
ABSTRACT
In the 1960-70s, South Korea was still in the position of a science latecomer. Although the scientific research environment in South Korea at that time was insufficient, there was a scientist who achieved outcomes that could be recognized internationally while acting in South Korea. He was Ho Wang Lee(1928~ ) who found Hantann Virus that causes epidemic hemorrhagic fever for the first time in the world. It became a clue to identify causative viruses of hemorrhagic diseases that were scattered here and there throughout the world. In addition, these outcomes put Ho Wang Lee on the global center of research into epidemic hemorrhagic fever. This paper examines how a Korean scientist who was in the periphery of virology could go into the central area of virology. Also this article shows the process through which the virus found by Ho Wang Lee was registered with the international academia and he proceeded with follow-up research based on this progress to reach the level at which he generalized epidemic hemorrhagic fever related studies throughout the world. While he was conducting the studies, experimental methods that he had never experienced encountered him as new difficulties. He tried to solve the new difficulties faced in his changed status through devices of cooperation and connection. Ho Wang Lee's growth as a researcher can be seen as well as a view of a researcher that grew from a regional level to an international level and could advance from the area of non-mainstream into the mainstream. This analytic tool is meaningful in that it can be another method of examining the growth process of scientists in South Korea or developing countries.