Organizer: Andrew Goble, University of Oregon Chair: Harold Bolitho, Harvard University Discussant: Harold Bolitho, Harvard University; Anne Walthall, University of California, Irvine
Where There's Smoke, There's Tobacco: The History of an Addictive Drug in Edo
Japan
William Johnston, Wesleyan University
Western traders first introduced tobacco into Japan during the latter half of the sixteenth century, along with several other products from the New World, including hot peppers, watermelons, potatoes, squash, and peanuts. By the beginning of the seventeenth century, tobacco had become a widely used and cultivated substance. Due to its association with contemporary gang activities and its being a wasteful use of financial and land resources, the Tokugawa bakufu attempted on several occasions during the seventeenth century to outlaw the use and cultivation of tobacco, but by 1700 it had become a widely grown cash crop and an integral part of contemporary culture.
This paper examines the reception of tobacco in Japan during the Edo period from contemporary medical and cultural perspectives. How did physicians and other intellectuals at the time understand this substance? What effect did measures to control it have? How do contemporary sources depict the use and spread of tobacco, which we now know to be both highly addictive and extremely dangerous; did people at the time see it this way? To answer these questions, I have used contemporary medical texts, legal sources, essays, fiction, and poetry. From these sources, I have drawn an image of a substance that became an integral part of Japanese culture and remains one to this day.
Consciousness of "Blood" in the Edo Period and Leprosy: On the
Treatment of Leprosy by Venesection
Noriko Suzuki, International Research Center for Japanese Studies, Kyoto
In this paper I will point out, through looking at early modern medical treatment for leprosy, the symbolic importance of "blood" in early modern society, and shed light on the views of the body and disease of early modern people.
The second half of the 18th century marked a major turning point in the treatment of leprosy in Japan: large-quantity venesection, designed to remove blood tainted by leprosy ("bad blood," "death blood") and regenerate new "true blood," became the dominant form of treatment. Why this should be so is of some interest, since it represents a qualitatively different approach to venesection than one finds in either contemporary Chinese or Western medicine.
Why was early modern medicine so focused on "blood"? In looking at sources that focus on "blood," I have noted a major historical point. This is that, starting from the late 17th century, one notes that in Joruri and other artistic realms intended for a commoner audience, we see the appearance of an emphasis on "blood relations" of parents and children or siblings. Is this the start of the period when, in all levels of society, there is a correlation between household and "blood"? In early modern medicine we see a classification of the pollution of the blood in leprosy into an inherited (through family lines) type and a contagious type, and in the evaluation of the former as a major affliction we see a reflection of the importance placed on blood in early modern society.
The State and Medicine in Ezo: Hired Physicians and Jennerian Vaccination Under
the Tokugawa Bakufu, 1799-1868
Brett L. Walker, University of Oregon
This paper argues that the bakufu undertook medical treatment in Ezo with the intention of integrating Ainu into the early modern body politic. Medicine broke down social and cultural barriers, linking Ainu to broader social initiatives being undertaken on mainland Japan. Importantly, the early modern state tied medicine to the "assimilation" policy in Ezo, effectively transforming Ainu medicinal culture and indigenous conceptions of what constituted a healthy life.
Medical treatment in Ezo included everything from moxibustion to complicated surgery. However, conventional medical treatment had little effect on the impact of smallpox on Ainu society. Subsequently, the majority of the paper is devoted to the Jennerian vaccination project in Ezo. Kuwata Ryûsai and Fukase Yôshu-with their retinue of disciples and assistants-vaccinated Ainu even in remote regions such as Kunashiri. Local bakufu officials spared no effort, calling in Nambu domain troops to round up fleeing Ainu, to make sure that vaccinations were properly carried out. Importantly, the vaccination project in Ezo was linked to the mainland "national" vaccination effort ordered by the bakufu.
Pointing to the salience of medicine, this paper sheds fresh light on the role of the bakufu in shaping later policy in Hokkaido. The early modern state undertook vaccinations in Ezo in a larger effort to expand and redefine ethnic and national boundaries in the nineteenth century, and medicine was an important first step in redefining state boundaries in Ezo.