The Ripples of Rivalry: The Spread of Modern Medicine from Japan to Its Colonies

Abstract

Because the medical modernization of Meiji Japan has been identified with progress in Asian societies, Japanese colonial medicine has been viewed as a carefully planned project. Colonial propaganda capitalized on this image in bringing “civilization to colonies.” In postwar scholarship, this view lends credibility to Basalla's diffusionist model of the spread of Western science. However, a factor in the spread of modern medicine from Japan to its colonies was the academic rivalry between Kitasato's pupils and Todai faculty between 1899 and 1914. Before medical modernization in Japan had produced sufficient resources to meet domestic need, the rivalry had driven many medical elites to colonies, with a ripple effect that produced a web of colonial medicine largely outside Todai's influence. In contrast to popular interpretations, this article proposes another possibility for understanding the formation of Japanese colonial medicine—rather than being carefully planned, it emerged from a professional feud.

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