Centennial History of Yonsei University Dermatology in Korea: 1917 to 2017

Yonsei Dermatology celebrated its centennial in 2017, marking 100 years since Kung Sun Oh established the first Department of Dermatology and Urology in Korea in 1917. Following the footsteps of Kung Sun Oh, a pioneer of Korean dermatology, its members united and worked to provide the best medical service and achieve academic milestones in dermatology. Over the past hundred years, Yonsei Dermatology has played a pivotal role in the advancement of medical science and academia in Korea. The main activities of the department include medical care, education, and dermatologic research. Its research activities have encompassed a wide spectrum of dermatologic manifestations from skin immunology and pathology to introduction of newly developed treatment technologies. As Kung Sun Oh was the first Korean professor of dermatology at Severance Medical School and a passionate educator, we continue to serve his will by nurturing medical students and dermatology specialists to serve as global medical leaders. The Kung Sun Oh Memorial Lecture, first hosted in 1977, was the beginning of mutual international academic exchange in the field of dermatology in Korea. The memorial lecture has played a major role in advancing the academic status of Korean dermatological science by inviting distinguished dermatologists from around the world as guest lecturers. Yonsei Dermatology has played a key role in the history of modern medicine and dermatology in Korea over the last 100 years and continues to make an impact.

Yun Il-sun's Studies in Japan and Medical Research during the Colonial Period / 의사학

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.

Lee Jungsook, a Korean Independence Activist and a Nurse during the Japanese Colonial Period / 의사학

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.

Professor McLaren (2). His Theories of Psychiatry / 신경정신의학

Professor Dr. Charles I. McLaren (1882-1957) of the Department of Psychiatry, Severance Union School of Medicine in Seoul, Korea had introduced not only Christianity but medicine and psychiatry of his time with his own theories to Korea while he had served as a Christian missionary from Australia to Korea from 1911 to 1941. Based on his view of Christianity and knowledge of modern science and medicine, he tried to explore the etiology, symptoms, treatment and spiritual meaning of mental disorders including general paresis, dementia praecox, mania, melancholia, paranoia, neurasthnenia, hysteria, hypochondriasis, and even psychophysiological disorder. Though he accepted that mental disorders are related to disrupted functions of brain or neurons, he believed that fundamental causes of insanity is spiritual. Regarding etiology, he suggested that people's choice not to follow God's logos by their free-will and consequent disharmony with nature or human society or failure of self to adapt to reality causes mental disorders. And he explained psychotic phenomena in view of Christian spirituality. In addition, he argued "psychic" (psychological or spiritual) conflict, sensitivity and guilt feeling as a possible etiology of psycho-neurosis including neurasthenia, hysteria and hypochondria. Conflict includes not only sexual conflicts but social conflicts related to family, job, money, or guilt feeling. He also emphasized the meaning and purpose of life in relation to development of mental illness. Remarkably, he introduced idea of "spill-over" to explain how emotional problems influence autonomic dysfunction resulting in psycho- physiological symptoms. He can be recognized as a psychiatrist who integrated bio-medical descriptive psychiatry with psycho-social approach, dynamic psychotherapy and even spiritual approach as a fundamental one. Though many scientific criticism can be given to his theories of psychaitry, he is deserved to be rediscovered and recognized as a pioneer who had shown another apprach to mental disorders to present psychiatrists who are lost in confusion with so many uncertainties in regard to understanding and treating mental disorders.

Professor Charles I. McLaren, MD (1) : His Life and Medical Philosophy / 신경정신의학

Professor Charles I. McLaren (1882-1957) was an Australian Christian missionary and a professor of psychiatry in Korea. As the first psychiatrist from a Western country, he accomplished tremendous achievements in clinical, teaching and writing activities as well as in his missionary work. He graduated from the University of Melbourne in 1906 and, after residency training under Professor Dr. Sir Richard Stawell at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, he and his wife came to Korea in 1911. He practised medicine at Margaret Whitecross Paton Memorial Hospital in Chinju, Korea and later was appointed as a professor of psychiatry at the Severance Union Medical School in Seoul, Korea. He left Korea for a while to participate in WWII as a military doctor and he also once traveled to Vienna to learn new skills, including fever therapy and psychoanalysis. Because of his love for the Korean people, Dr. McLaren not only introduced into Korean society modern Western psychiatry and a humanitarian approach to patients with mental disorders, but he also practised medicine according to his own unique medical philosophy drawn from Christian spirituality and he educated Korean native students in psychiatry and Christianity. He and his wife also made efforts to improve old customs in Korean society. Because he argued against Japan's enforcement of emperor-worship, he had to resign from the Severance Medical College in 1939, and he returned to Chinju. Immediately after the bombing of Pearl Harbour, he was arrested, imprisoned, interned, and subequently expelled to Australia in 1942. In Melbourne, received wide press coverage and great controversy. He lectured widely and contributed to various professional and other publications, covering not only subjects in Christianity and medicine/psychiatry, but also his opinions about the war and Japan, communism and the White Australia policy. As a Christian me-dical doctor and scientist, he was interested in the "nature of man", the relationship or interaction between body (brain and/or material) and mind/spirituality, the origin of human consciousness in relation to time-space energy, the healing of disease, and the etiology of mental illness and spiritual treatment. He was passionate in his stated belief that God's Word applied to the whole spec-trum of human relationships, from personal to international, as well as to the natural world. Dr. McLaren kept his conservative Christian beliefs, but he respected traditional Asian philosophies. His thoughts and experiences were publically expressed through lectures, journals and books, not only in Korea but also in China and Australia. He was a man of compassion, courage and ceaseless intellectual activity, a pioneer of psychiatry and a lifelong explorer of the Bible. Korean psych-iatrists, who may feel confused by the many complicated new medical theories and advanced technologies, still find Dr. McLaren's simple and clear teachings on science, medicine, and human nature and his practice of caring for mental patients with a compassionate, humanitarian and Christian attitude a challenging example to emulate.

The Establishment of SUMC(Severance Union Medical College) Psychiatry Department and the Formation of Humanistic Tradition / 의사학

Psychiatry is a branch of medicine which deals with the problem of mental health. Although psychiatric concept and treatment is not absent in traditional medicine in Korea, it was not regarded as an independent discipline of medicine. Modern psychiatry was introduced into Korea as modern Western medicine was introduced in 19th century. The American medical missionary Dr. Allen and Dr. Heron gave the first classification of mental diseases of Korean patients in their first year report of Jejoongwon hospital. The statistics are characterized by relatively high rate of hysteria patients among the patients with mental disorders. It was Dr. Mclaren who took the charge of the Psychiatric Department of Severance hospital, the successor of Jejoongwon hospital. As a psychiatrist, Dr. Mclaren had a deep interest in human nature and mind. His thinking on the subjects was based on his Christian faith and philosophy. He claimed that Christian faith plays an important role in curing mental diseases. And several medical students decided to become a psychiatrist under his influence. Among them is Dr. Lee Chung Chul who took the charge of the Department of Psychiatry after Mclaren. After graduation in 1927, Dr. Lee studied in Peking Union Medical College, Australia, and Japan. His main research interests were focused on the biological aspects of mental disorders, and he published several important papers on the subject. But his unexpected early resignation and subsequent expulsion of Dr. Mclaren from Korea by Japanese colonial government hindered further development of psychiatry in Severance Union Medical College until the Liberation from Japanese occupation in 1945. But some of their students specialized in psychiatry during the hard period of early 1940s and they played an important role in the development of modern psychiatry in Korea after the Liberation.

Life and Medical Activities of Yun Ti Wang / 의사학

Yun Ti Wang studied medicine in England, different from other Korean medical doctors in early days. Yun, who entered medical school at Glasgow University in England in March 1919, graduated with a Bachelor of Medicine in October 1925, along with an England medical license. Yun began working as an instructor at Severance Medical College from November 1927, and received Doctor of Medicine from the College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists at Kyoto Imperial University in August 1936. After the Liberation, Yun began working as a faculty member at the medical school at Seoul University, and he also worked as a Chief of the Second Medical Clinic of the school from 1946. Yun made a great effort in order to build an integrated committee, eventually contributing to the launching of Joseon Medical Associates in 1947. He was also elected as a first president at Joseon Obstetrics and Gynecology Associates, which was organized at the same year as the Joseon Medical Associates. Yun entered military as an army surgeon in April 1949 and has worked there until he was appointed as a principal at the Army Medical School in September 1953. His contributions to the development of military medical services include the following: expansion of medical facilities in army, stable system of workforce in military medical service, launching of Medical Aid and establishment of Department of Medical Care, and introduction of new medical technologies in anesthesiology and neurosurgery, etc. The career of Yun can be largely divided into the field of gynecology and military medical services. In the gynecological field, Yun contributed to the settlement of obstetrics in Korea, by taking in charge of the obstetrics class at Severance following medical missionaries. As for the military medical services, he has contributed to the establishment of military medical system as well as to the opening of new academic areas. The impact of his activities on the establishment of military medical services is especially significant, since it was a field that no Korean citizens had access to during the colonization era.

A History of the Research Department of the Severance Union Medical College / 의사학

The Research Department of the Severance Union Medical College was founded on November 4th, 1914. Drs. R. G. Mills, J. D. VanBuskirk and A. I. Ludlow were the co-founders of the department. The department aimed at investigating the medical problems of Koreans which originated from the differences of diet, customs and habits. The main fields of the research were divided into three: traditional medicine, diet of the Koreans, and special diseases in Korea. As to the research of the traditional medicine, Mills conducted extensive investigations on the drugs mentioned in the pharmacopeia of the traditional medical texts. His work included the translation of the medical texts into English, which unfortunately was not published, and the collection of thousands traditional drugs and botanical specimens. To the second field, VanBuskirk contributed much. His research was mainly focused on investigating the characteristics of Korean diet, finding out its problems, and recommending more balanced diet. The third field was the research of the diseases specific in Korea. The diseases caused by various parasites were the main targets of the research. At first, the Research Department was a laboratory where research was actually being carried out. But, its nature has been changed as each department became the center of research activities. The Research Department became a research promoting center which provides research funds for each department or individual researchers. The founding of the Research Department in the Severance Union Medical College marks a turning point in the history of SUMC in the sense that academic activities began to become more important in the missionary institute.

Reformation of the Medical Educational Institutes and Training of General Doctors during the Early Period of Japanese Rule / 의사학

The Japanese government downgraded a Korean medical college being attached to the Daehan hospital to a medical training center blaming upon a lack of education in Korea. But the actual curriculum and the years required for completing a course of study in the Korean medical college were equivalent to those of the Japanese medical college. Furthermore, the Japanese government discarded the financial support for medical school students. So they should pay their tuitions and other stipends by themselves. The Japanese government forced a private institute to establish an endowed school by the legal act of college. It enabled to classify a medical education system with the judicial support. For the example of Severance Medical School, it reformed faculty, curriculum and facility according to the legal standard of a college act. Therefore, Severance Medical School was able to be upgraded to a medical college. But there was a limitation even for the government schools under the colonial era. It was not possible to train important medical human resource who enabled to supervise the modern medical system in Korea. On one hand, almost every important medical human resource such as a military doctor, and a professor, who should have trained in Korea in the Great Han Period, was trained in Japan. On the other hand, fostering general doctors, who practiced medicine with hands-on experience, was the purpose of medical education in Korea whether the medical school was governmental or private. Since the purpose of Severance Medical College was to foster general doctors, it was able to grow within the colonial medical system. The purpose of medical missionaries, who promoted the spread of gospel with the western medical support, enforced the Japanese colonial logics that the Japanese government could educate and develop Korea with the introduction of western civilization. Although it was later comparing to the government medical school, Severance Medical College enabled to certify the medical license automatically to the graduates from the school. The reason that the Japanese government allowed for Severance Medical College to issue the automatic medical license was to keep the colonial structure of Japanese in Korea.

Severance of Optic Nerve Following Traffic Accident and Its Electron Microscopic Findings

The optic nerve do not easily sever because of its anatomic status in the orbit. The purpose of this study is to investigate electron microscopic findings in the proximal portion of the severed optic nerve which remained in the orbit for about 4.5 months. Thirty seven-year-old woman showed the protruded eyeball and deep skin laceration following traffic accident. Computerized tomography and MRI demonstrated the complete severance in her left optic nerve. Her eyeball containing the proximal portion of the severed optic nerve was enucleated at about 4.5 months after traffic accident. Eletron microscopic findings showed several macrophages, fibroblast, and dense collagen fibers, which mean the fibrosis histopathologically. The fibrosis was the main pathologic outcome in the proximal portion of the severed optic nerve. We suggest that the process of the fibrosis could result from the incorporation of the fibroblast within the meninges around the optic nerve and the proliferation of the fibroblast within fibrovascular septa of the pia mater which extend into the optic nerve.

The fate of the old Jejoong Won following the establishment of the new Jejoong Won (Severance Hospital) / 의사학

Dr. Allen, the first Protestant missionary in Korea, had an opportunity of saving the life of the queen's nephew shortly after his arrival in Korea in 1884. In gratitude the King established the Royal Korean Hospital (Jejoong Won), the first hospital in Korea, and appointed Dr. Allen in charge of the medical affairs of the hospital. After Dr. Allen's resignation from the mission, the work was successively carried on by Drs. JW Heron, RA Hardie, CC Vinton and OR Avison, the last of whom arrived in 1893. In 1894 the connection of the Hospital with the Korean Government was severed and the work taken over by the Northern Presbyterian Mission. Since then, it has been a distinctly mission institute. In 1900, while attending the Ecumenical Conference of Foreign Missions in Carnegie Hall, New York, Dr. Avison made the acquaintance of a philanthropist LH Severance, who made a gift of $10,000 for a new hospital. This building, the first modern hospital in Korea, was opened and dedicated in 1904. It was named the Severance Hospital. As the new hospital was built, the old hospital building was to be returned to the Korean Government according to the agreement made in 1894. On retaking the old hospital, the Korean Government paid $30,289.99 won for the renovation of the original building and new buildings established in the site during the period of Avison's entire charge of Jejoong Won. The old hospital building was used as an official residence for a diplomatic adviser Stevens, who was assassinated for his pro-Japan activities, and as a social club for Japanese officials.

A study on the movement for establishing a private isolation hospital under the rule of Japanese imperialism / 의사학

Koreans had an ill feeling against the only public isolation hospital, and their ill feeling was a cause the movement for establishing a private isolation hospital. The bad seating capacity and the nearness to downtown of public isolation hospital, and some violence caused in the course of taking a patient to the public isolation hospital were concrete causes of the movement for establishing a private isolation hospital. The three purposes of the movement for establishing a private isolation hospital are as follows. First, for the purpose of removing the national ill feeling, Koreans had to establish the isolation hospital by themselves. Second, for the purpose of curing the patients, doctors needed to use Oriental medicine together. Third, for the purpose of doing away with the anxiety of infection, the isolation hospital had to be located in a distant place from downtown. The movement for establishing a private isolation hospital didn't succeed. It only ended up establishing a contagious ward in Severance hospital. Because whenever an isolation hospital was planned to be constructed somehere, the residents worrying about the infection opposed to the construction, and enough money didn't be gathered. Abve all, rich pro-Japanese men didn't contribute enough money. The middle and lower classes contributed almost all of the money. The movement for estabishing a private isolation hospital was the extension of anti-Japanese national feeling that sprung from the March 1st movement. In view of strenghtening Korean ability, the movement for establishing a private isolation hospital had a common cause with the Shilryokyangsong movement in the early 1920s.

The Early Medical Textbooks in Korea: Medical Textbooks published at Je Joong Won-Severance Hospital Medical School / 의사학

Kwang Hye Won(Je Joong Won), the first western hospital in Korea, was founded in 1885. The first Medical School in Korea was open in 1886 under the hospital management. Dr. O. R. Avison, who came to Korea in 1893, resumed the medical education there, which was interrupted for some time before his arrival in Korea. He inaugurated translating and publishing medical textbooks with the help of Kim Pil Soon who later became one of the first seven graduates in Severance Hospital Medical school. The first medical textbook translated into Korean was Henry Gray's {Anatomy}. However, this twice-translated manuscripts were never to be published on account of being lost and burnt down. The existing early anatomy textbooks, the editions of 1906 and 1909, are not the translation of Gray's {Anatomy}, but that of Japanese anatomy textbook of Gonda. The remaining oldest medical textbook in Korean is {Inorganic Materia Medica} published in 1905. This book is unique among its kinds that O. R. Avison is the only translator of the book and it contains the prefaces of O. R. Avison and Kim Pil Soon. The publication of medical textbook was animated by the participation of other medical students, such as Hong Suk Hoo and Hong Jong Eun. The list of medical textbooks published includes almost all the field of medicine. The medical textbooks in actual existence are as follows. {Inorganic Materia Medica (1905)}, {Inorganic Chemistry(1906)}, {Anatomy I(1906)}, {Physiology(1906)}, {Diagnostics I(1906)}, {Diagnostics II(1907)}, {Obstetrics(1908)}, {Organic Chemistry (1909)}, {Anatomy(1909)}, {Surgery(1910)}.

Kim Pil Soon, A Great Doctor / 의사학

Kim Pil Soon was born at Sorae Village of Hwang Hye Province, the birth place of the Protestantism in Korean. He was brought up under the strong influence of Christianity and received modern education at Pae Chae School according to the ecommendation of Rev. Underwood. In 1899, Kim Pil Soon, who had been working at Je Joong Won as an assistant and nterpreter of Dr. Sharrocks, was employed by Dr. Avison to help preparing medical textbooks and asked to participate in the medical education. He acquired medical knowledges through his work of translating various medical texts, and which enabled him to teach other medical students. He participated in the administration of the Hospital, taking charge of the provision of meals for in-patients as well as directing the construction of Severance Hospital buildings. And his experience of treating soldiers wounded during the turmoil of the forced dismission of the Korean Army by the Japanese lead him to reflect seriously on Korea's fate in peril. In addition, he became a member of Sinmin Society, a secret political association, to engage in the independence movement. In 1908, Kim Pil Soon graduated from Severance Hospital Medical School as one of the first seven graduates. On graduation, he was appointed as a professor and took the charge of school affaires in 1910. At first, he worked as a assistant physician of ward and surgery, then he took the responsibility of out-patient clinic in 1911. But suddenly, in December 1911, he exiled to China to escape from the Japanese police who was in pursuit of him on account of his involvement in the so-called 105-Person Affaire, a fabricated affaire served as a pretext for the persecution of independence movement. He continued the independence movement in the form of an ideal village movement and training the Independence Army. In 1919, however, he was poisoned to death in a mysterious way. Kim Pil Soon dedicated himself to the independence movement that demands personal sacrifice: giving up his prospective career as a doctor, professor, and hospital administrator. He no longer remained as a ordinary clinician who treats only diseased persons, but transformed himself to the Great Doctor, a time-old ideal type of doctor in the East Asian countries who treats and cures the diseased nation, by dedicating himself to the independence movement.

Two cases of hemostasis by thrombosis in the traumatic total Severance of renal pedicle / 대한비뇨기과학회지

Total severance of renal pedicle by blunt trauma to the abdomen is relatively rare and mainly leads to a fatal result by hypovolemic shock. We report the two cases of a 35 and a 20-year-old men with survival. They had blunt trauma on their right flank area by fall down from a driving cultivater and a steep hill 3 meters high in drunken state, respectively. We identified totally severed renal artery and vein to have been hemostatic by thrombosis at explorative laparatomy.