The Japanese Colonial Medicine as Seen Through the Life of Fujita Tsuguakira / 의사학

Fujita Tsuguakira was a man who established Jahyeuiwon, a governmental medical facility, during the Residency-General Period and took over the presidency of a committee in the Japanese Government-General of Chosun after Chosun was annexed to Japanese. In addition, he is a man well qualified to be placed on the top of the list when discussing the Japanese colonial medicine in Chosun, considering his personal history of getting evolved in the colonial rule of Taiwan for seven years as an army surgeon. He led the colonial medicine in Chosun for nine years before and after the Japanese annexation of Korea. He was engaged in almost all the areas related to the colonial medicine such as anti-cholera projects, Hansung Sanitation Union, Deahan Hospital, Chosun Chongdokbu Hospital, Jahyeuiwon, medical schools affiliated to the Japanese Government-General of Chosun. In all respects, his life was in sync with the expansionist strategies of Imperial Japan. Especially, his deeds in Chosun was an "active aid to the instructions" from Army Minister Terauchi Masatake" as Sato Kozo testifies. Fujita was chosen by the military, and so he faithfully served the role given from it. The rewards that he received form the military attest to this fact. He took the position of Surgeon General in Army Medical Service on September, 1912, the top place that an army surgeon could hold. The position was first given to the officer who worked outside Japan proper, and he was the only army surgeon with no doctorial degree to receive such title except for Ishiguro Tadanori who was the first army surgeon in Japan. To sum up, Fujita was not a "doctor" but a "military officer". His walk of life mainly lay in the role of an aider adjusted to the ups and downs and the speeds of the plans of Imperial Japan to invade the continent. Therefore, the Japanese colonial medicine controlled by such man as Fujita in Chosun was inevitably studded with the military things. As a chief in the army medicine, what was important to him was the hospitals for managing the armed troops and projects for preventing infectious disease that could threaten the military sanitation. As a result, the medical service for those under the colonial rule was naturally put on the back burner. This study was conducted mainly based on Fujita's memoirs called Army Surgeon General Fujita Tsuguakira (1943), and accordingly it would be not without limitations. However, as he is a man who cannot be put aside when discussing the Japanese colonial medicine in Chosun, the records by this study of his life and past activities are expected to give no small amount of contribution to these discussions.

Research by Psychiatrists of Chosun Chongdokbu Hospital and Keijo Imperial University in Korea during Japanese Colonial Rule / 신경정신의학

Eighty-three of 114 original articles and abstracts of research published by neuropsychiatrists of Chosun Chongdokbu Hospital (the Japanese colonial government hospital in Korea) and Keijo (Seoul) Imperial University Hospital during the Japanese colonial period (1910-1945) in journals including Shinkeigaku-zassi (Neurologia), Seishin-shinkei-gaku zassi (Psychiatria Et Neurologia Japonica), and The Journal of Chosun (Korea) Medical Association were reviewed. Most articles were on clinical research based on descriptive and biological psychiatry while only 4 articles were on dynamic psychiatry, probably because Japanese pioneers in psychiatry had introduced German psychiatry into Japan during the 1880s. The first paper was written by Dr. Shim Ho-sub. Professor Kubo of Keijo (Seoul) Imperial University published most articles, followed by Dr. Hikari, Dr. Hattori, and Dr. Sugihara. There were more articles on symptomatic psychosis and morphine addiction, followed by general paralysis, schizophrenia, neurological diseases, narcolepsy, epilepsy, and neurasthenia. The meaningful articles even for today were comparative studies between Japanese and Koreans and articles on opioid use disorder in Korea. Authors reported a markedly lower rate of psychotic inpatients in the population of Koreans compared with Japanese. Japanese researchers argued that, because of simpleness in social life in Korea and less violence or excitement in symptoms, Korean mental patients could be cared for by family or members of the community, or be treated by shamanism rather than bringing them to a public mental hospital, and poverty also prohibited hospital care. Finding of higher ratio of schizophrenia to manic-depressive psychosis among Koreans than Japanese was discussed in relation to delayed cultural development of Korea compared to Japan. In addition, traditional customs prohibiting marriage between relatives in Korea was related to low prevalence of manic-depressive psychosis, local endemic malaria was related to low prevalence of general paresis, and poor general hygiene was related to high prevalence of epilepsy. Unclear (undifferentiated) form of psychotic symptoms including hallucination and delusion was reported in more Koreans than Japanese. Also Korean patients showed a more atypical form in diagnosis. Authors added that they had found no culture-specific mental illness in Korea. However, no Korean psychiatrists were included as author in such comparative studies. Comparative studies on constitution between Koreans and Japanese mental patients and prisoners were also unique. However, no Korean psychiatrists participated in such comparative studies. In studies on morphine addiction in Koreans, Japanese researchers argued that such studies were necessary to prevent introduction of morphine-related criminal phenomena to Japan. Meanwhile, Dr. Kubo had left a notion on adaptation problems of Japanese living in the foreign country, Korea. Nevertheless he reported nothing about psychosocial aspects of mental illness in relation to political, cultural, and economic difficulties Koreans were experiencing under the colonial rule of Japan. These general trends of studies based on German biological and descriptive psychiatry and policies of colonial government to isolate "dangerous" mental patients in hospital appeared to reflect colonial or ethnopsychiatry of those days. These policy and research trends seem to have worsened stigma attached to mental disorders. Japanese tradition of psychiatric research was discontinued by return home of Japanese scholars with the end of WWII and colonial rule.