A Study on the Jejungwon Hospital Building in Jaedong and Gurigae, and Uses of the Hospital after its Relocation / 의사학

Jejungwon hospital, the first modern healthcare facility to be built in Korea, was built at Jaedong in 1885 and moved to Gurigae in 1887. Finally, it was moved to Dodong, outside the Namdaemun Gate, and its name was changed to Severance Hospital. The Jaedong Jejungwon hospital was located at a former house of HONG Youngsik, and it was expanded by renovating existing buildings and constructing new buildings in 2 years. The Gurigae Jejungwon hospital, which was located near Myeongdong Cathedral, was bigger than the Jaedong Jejungwon one and even provided residence to doctors. Jejungwon hospital was a good example of the healthcare facilities that were available in early modern Korea; however, due to a lack of historical materials, it is not easy to analyze the buildings of Jejungwon hospital. Recently, several architectural drawings made by Japanese and photographs taken by foreigners in the early 20th century were discovered, which help us to understand the buildings of the Jejungwon hospitals in Jaedong and Gurigae. This study analyzes the locations and layouts of the buildings of Jejungwon hospital and, furthermore, traces the history of Jejungwon hospital following its relocation. The Jaedong Jejungwon hospital was located at 35 Jaedong, as already known. By analyzing the architectural drawing of Kyeongseong Women's High-School Dormitory, the exact size of the existing building of Jaedong Jejungwon was calculated as 12m × 3.9m. Since the relocation of Jejungwon hospital to Gurigae in 1887, the remnants of Jejungwon buildings were used as Gwangjewon (1900-1907); a vaccine-manufacturing plant (1907-1910); and, finally, the dormitory of Kyeongseong Women's High School(1910s-1950s). The Gurigae Jejungwon hospital was assumed to be located at 193, 2nd street of Koganecho (黄金町) and 4, 1st street of Meijicho (明治町). In particular, the residence of Avison, which was built after 1894, was located at 4, 1st Street of Meijicho, the place with the highest elevation compared to surrounding areas. After 1905, Stevens, a foreign affairs adviser, lived there for one year, following which the Korean government office for agriculture and industry took over the place. The buildings that were used as the hospital at 193, 2nd street of Koganecho were transformed into the Daedong Japanese Club. By analyzing the newly found research materials, it is possible to examine and revise the previous research on the Jaedong Jejungwon and Gurigae Jejungwon hospital buildings. Furthermore, it is noteworthy that the buildings of Jejungwon hospital in Jaedong and Gurigae have been reused as healthcare facilities over the years.

The Translation and Its Meanings of Materia Medica Part. I in the Jejungwon / 의사학

For more systematic medical education, Dr. O. R. Avison translated medical textbooks into Korean since he took charge of Jejungwon in 1893. The first book he chose was Anatomy of the Human Body. He, however, failed to see it published after losing its manuscript twice. Instead, Materia Medica Part. I was brought into the world first in 1905, for which he translated Materia Medica and Therapeutics written by John Mitchell Bruce from the U. K. At that time, this book was in widespread use in the English-speaking world as a textbook for pharmacology. It is also assumed that Avison used it as a textbook for his classes in Canada before coming to Korea. For the publication of Materia Medica Part. I, Avison did not translate Bruce's original text in full, but translated only the selected passages. He followed a principle of using Korean alphabets (Hangeul) only, but in combination with Chinese characters, if necessary. He put pharmacological terms into existing Korean equivalents or newly coined words, but also borrowed many from Japanese terms. That's because Japan moved faster to introduce Western medicine than Korea did, so that many pharmacological terms could be defined and arranged more systematically in Japanese. Moreover, Japan took such a favorable stance in the state of international affairs that many of Japanese-style terms could be introduced into Korea in most fields including medicine. By translating Materia Medica Part. I in cooperation with his disciple KIM Pilsoon after Gray's Anatomy of the Human Body, Avison tried to lay groundwork for providing medical education in Korea based on the British-American medicine. It is assumed that he took an independent stance in selecting and translating Western medical textbooks on his own rather than simply accepting the existing Chinese translation of Western medical textbooks. Despite all his efforts, he might find it difficult to translate all the Western medical terms into Korean within a short period of time. Therefore, he seems to have had no choice but to accept Japanese medical terms as a complementary measure.