Johnston W
Department of History, Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT 06459-0002, USA.
Soc Hist Med. 1994 Aug;7(2):247-67. doi: 10.1093/shm/7.2.247.
This paper examines the historical transformation of concepts of tubercular diseases in Japan from premodern to modern times. Its principal conclusion is that, between the eighteenth and the twentieth centuries, intellectual and cultural circumstances in Japan first facilitated and then hindered the adoption of Western concepts of tubercular diseases. The Japanese adopted Western concepts of tubercular diseases from the early nineteenth century not because they suggested more effective therapeutic measures but because they mirrored ideas that the Japanese had developed during the previous century. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries concepts of tubercular disease based on Western medical thought conflicted with popular concepts, creating a point of cultural dissonance in Japanese society that was overcome only after effective medicinal cures for tuberculosis were invented. To demonstrate these points, this paper surveys representative Chinese, Japanese, and European medical texts and ideas from earliest times to the first half of the twentieth century. Although the focus is on one specific set of diseases, this example helps explain why the Japanese adopted Western medicine much more quickly than their cultural neighbours in China and Korea, although this conclusion is left implied rather than stated.
本文考察了日本从近代以前到近代结核疾病概念的历史转变。其主要结论是，在18世纪至20世纪期间，日本的知识和文化环境先是促进了，而后又阻碍了西方结核疾病概念的采用。日本人从19世纪早期开始采用西方结核疾病概念，并非因为这些概念提出了更有效的治疗措施，而是因为它们反映了日本人在前一个世纪所形成的观念。在19世纪末和20世纪初，基于西方医学思想的结核疾病概念与大众观念发生冲突，在日本社会造成了一种文化失调点，这种失调点直到发明了有效的结核病药物治疗方法后才得以克服。为了论证这些观点，本文考察了从最早时期到20世纪上半叶具有代表性的中国、日本和欧洲医学文本及观念。尽管重点是一组特定的疾病，但这个例子有助于解释为什么日本人比他们在中国和韩国的文化邻邦更快地采用了西方医学，不过这一结论是隐含而非明确表述的。
