YI Suki's Yoksimanpil and the Professional Identity of a Chung'in Medical Official in Eighteenth Century Choson Korea / 의사학

About one hundred years after the publication of Tonguibogam (1613), a physician at the court YI Suki (1664-?) wrote a medical manuscript titled Yoksimanpil (Miscellaneous Jottings on Medical Experiences and Tests, 1734). As indicated in its title, Yoksimanpil was a medical essay composed of 130 medical case histories, drawing on what YI Suki himself had experienced in his medical practices. This paper examines the messages YI Suki in Yoksimanpil tried to address to his fellow Korean doctors, and by doing so illuminates an aspect of the medicine in the late Choson period. The argument goes that YI Suki wrote Yoksimanpil as a vehicle for promulgating his professional identity as a bureaucratic physician who belonged to the network of the chung'in technical officials-a group of government technical functionaries in late Choson Korea. Throughout the late Choson period, the chung'in technical officials had been discriminated, institutionally and socioculturally, against the yangban literati, while their promotion to honored higher positions was blocked. It was in the late 17th and early 18th century that a group of chung'in officials tried to secure their sociocultural places for their professional activity, thus bringing to light their social and professional identity in Choson society. A member of the network of the chung'in technical officials in the early 18th century, YI Suki was in an effort to position himself as a doctor somewhere between the medical tradition and the Confucian literary tradition. In these sociocultural contexts, we can see more clearly what YI Suki tried to speak of in his book and the historical meaning of the medical writing Yoksimanpil. First, the way he practiced medicine was testing and confirming what the received medical textbooks had asserted (Chunghomkobang). This style of practicing medicine could be viewed as a reflection of the comprehensivity trait of bureaucratic court physicians network YI Suki belonged to. Also this type of practice has the implication that YI Suki himself was a well-versed practitioner following the medical textual tradition, which was closely associated with the medical officials network. The emergence of the practice Chunghomkobang could be better understood in the backdrop of over 100 years of maturation process of Tonguibogam in the clinical practices. Second, he formulated the professional identity of physicians only in terms of medical proficiency without recourse to the Confucian literary tradition. In other words, in promoting the social status of medicine, he did not resort to Confucian morality. He instead emphasized his dexterity or resourcefulness in dealing with millions of ever-changing diseases (Imsikwonbyon). Conceivably, this way of characterizing his own medical practice-by way of strongly combining the textual tradition and the experiential tradition while keeping distance with the Confucian literary tradition-reflected the complexity of the ambivalent identity of the technical chung'in officials, especially in regard to Confucianism, between Confucian physicians and hereditary doctors. All in all, YI Suki presented himself as an ideal image of the physician, which arguably reflected the sociocultural and academic context of the network of the chung'in technical officials in early 18th century Choson Korea.

Introduction of the modern western medicine in late Choson period (I) / 의사학

Generally it has been thought that the modern western medicine was introduced into Korea by Japanese physicians and Western missionaries. But some recent studies have revealed that in the late Choson period, Koreans and Korean government played the essential roles in the introduction of it. This paper summarized and discussed the self-reliant activities of Koreans at the time, mainly in introducing the smallpox vaccination method and establishing Jejoong-Won Hospital, the first modern hospital in Korea.

The Historical Interpretation on the Formation of the Modern Health Care System in Late Choson / 의사학

This study refers to the origin of the modern health care system in Korea. The modern health care system was emerged in order to solve the problem of the infectious diseases and to increase the national population between 1876 and 1910. 'Opening a Country'(1876) urged the Chos?n dynasty to strengthen her national power to compete with the imperial powers, and the increase of the population was one of the major concerns. 'Opening a Country' also provided the methods of controlling the infectious diseases which were the most important factors causing population unstability. The modern health care system in Korea had been formed for about 30 years since 'Opening a Country'. The new health care system aimed at controlling population. It was different from the old system that claimed for Confucian ideology, loyalty and paternal love of the people. The new system was consisted of three sectors - public health, medical care, and the surveillance of the private practitioners and drug-sellers. Vaccination for smallpox, sanitation, quarantine and hospitals for Western medicine were established in the medical care sector. Licensing for herbal doctors and pharmacists was taken in order to control the quality of private practitioners. In addition, the Sanitary Board was set to provide the systematic health care and the police was created to enforce many sanitary affairs. The emergence of modern health care system took several steps. Generally speaking, the Western health care and medicine which were very poor at first became the dominant, while the once strong indigenous medicine and health care tended to the marginal. As soon as Chos?n was opened to the outside world, Chos?n government regarded herself to be able to select some Western health care methods, for example, vaccination, sanitation and quarantine, to control the infectious diseases without changing the existing social order. But because of international environment surrounding Chos?n and people's uprising to destroy the feudalistic dynasty, more fundamental changes were needed. The Reform in 1894-5 was the product of these movements. As result of the Reform movements the governmental health care system based on Confucian 'Wangdo' ideology was changed into modern one calling for the quantitative and qualitative control of population. The Sanitary Board was established, and police was created, while royal medicine, which had represented the government health care for long time, was limited to just the practice of royal physicians. In spite of this drastic changes the reformation was not substantial because of the instability of political regimes. Thus most of the modern health care system had been achieved during the Kwangmu Reform period(1896-1904) directed by the Emperor and his followers. The system included the health care organization, public health, medical care, and the surveillance of the private practitioners. And the respect for the traditional herbal medicine was one of the prominent features in this Reform period. As Imperial Japan started to colonialize Korea after, the policy of health care system was greatly changed. Japanese controlled Korean health care institutions and they built high-level Western hospitals for only their health. And they eliminated Korean traditional medicine out of the public sectors. They strengthened the control of the infectious diseases by police and the military police, but they exploited it as the means of the surveillance of everyday life of Korean in the name of hygiene. The modern health care system emerged during 1876-1910 seems to be similar to the present health care system because it aimed at the control of population. However it is different because it showed paternalistic authority unlike the present system which is based on the individual right. In the Kwangmu Reform period, health care was dependent on the mercy of the Emperor, and in the Japanese occupation period, the health care system contributed to the increase of the autocratic, paternalistic colonial power.