“민족생명력”을 위한 과학과 의료

Abstract

This paper analyzes a Japanese physiologist’s activities and writings during the Sino-Japanese and the Pacific Wars. Uramoto Masasaburō (浦本政三郎, 1891-1965) was one of the leading physiologists of prewar Japan, whose expertise spanned from general physiology, reflex theory, kinesiology to sports medicine. As a founding member of the Physiological Society of Japan (PSJ) and physiology professor at the Tokyo Jikei University of Medicine, Uramoto actively engaged in the public discourse regarding the relationship between nation (minzoku), science, national vitality, and the role of physiology/medicine in society. Ultimately, he resonated with a group of his contemporaries who sought to construct nationally defined philosophy of science and medicine. This particularistic approach to science and medicine faced fierce criticism and was often labeled as “unscientific and irrational Japanism (nihonshugi)” by critically minded scientists, especially the Marxist scientist group. Although Uramoto and his like-minded physiologists have long been forgotten, his active involvement in the conceptual and institutional pursuit of wartime medical new order (ikai shintaisei) - centering on the role of a nation-state -left lasting legacies in postwar Japan.