Colonial Research on Public Hygiene and its Postcolonial Legacy: Focusing on Hygiene Laboratory in Colonial Korea.

Previous studies on the history of Korean public health have shown that the public hygiene system in Korea under Japan's colonial rule relied heavily on the sanitary police, whose lack of expertise in hygiene reinforced the coercion and violence of the colonial public hygiene system. This view, however, has overlooked the existence and function of scientific knowledge, which underpinned the formulation and implementation of public hygiene policies. This paper explores the knowledge production in public hygiene by research institutes of Japan's colonial government in Korea, drawing on the Hygiene Laboratory as a case. The Hygiene Laboratory chiefly played three roles: first, providing advice on the sanitary police's crackdowns; second, quality inspection of food, beverage, and pharmaceuticals, and authorizing their production and distribution; third, investigating health resources such as conventional food ingredients, medicinal herbs, and drinking water to support the wartime public health policy of the colonial government in Korea. The third function in particular continued after the reorganization of the Hygiene Laboratory as the National Chemistry Laboratory in the postcolonial period. By tracing the Hygiene Laboratory's research activities, this paper highlights the complicated cooperation between expertise, practices, and institutions in the field of sanitation control in colonial Korea.

The First and the Second Pneumonic Plague in Manchuria and the Preventive Measure of Japanese Colonial Authorities (1910-1921) / 의사학

During the first plague epidemic in Manchuria (1910-1911), Japanese Government-General in Korea had not reported a plague patient at all in official. This did not mean the preventive measure of colonial authorities was successful. Their prevention program and measure were operated inadequately. They focused on instigative and sometimes irrelevant aspects such as rat removal to restore order in the colony. The quarantine facility was insufficient so that some people could not be effectively isolated. The reason pneumonic plague did not spread from Manchuria to Korea was mostly because Chinese coolie did not enter Korea. The colonial government promulgated Jeonyeombyeong Yebangryeong (Preventive Regulation of Contagious Disease) in June 5, 1915. This regulation aimed at unitary control by police and was strengthened 10-day quarantine. After the March First Movement, the colonial government tried to change imperial policy to cultural policy. The military police and civilian police were bifurcated and governors took charge of health administration. However, sanitary police still played important role for preventive measure. The preventive policy of colonial government experienced important change from cholera epidemic between 1919 and 1920. The death toll of two years had exceeded 20,000 people. During the cholera outbreak of two years, quarantine and isolation were emerged as important tools to prevent disease transmission, and were well-appointed more now than before. To prevent cholera epidemic, the colonial government strengthened house-to-house inspection as well as seaport quarantine, train quarantine, passenger quarantine. House-to-house inspection detected sixty percentage of cholera patients. When the second Manchurian plague spread in Korea in 1920-1921, this plague was known to Korean people as pneumonic plague. The colonial government propagated and educated pneumonic plague, and urged to wear a mask through Heuksabyeong Yebang Simdeuk (The Notandum for Plague Prevention). The colonial government did not focused on rat removal any more. They pointed out Chinese coolie as a source of infection. Though they did not know exact information and analysis on pneumonic plague, the preventive measure of the second plague in Manchuria was successful due to the well-equipped disinfection system such as house-to-house inspection and nationwide quarantine made by cholera prevention. While the first prevention of plague in Manchuria was successful despite rubbish preventive system, the second prevention of plague in Manchuria was successful due to the well-equipped disinfection system in spite of occurring plague patients.