20세기 초 일본 군대의 성병관리

Abstract

This study examines how prevalent an effect sexually transmitted diseases in modern times had on the Japanese army and how the Japanese government tried to manage them. After the Meiji Restoration, sexually transmitted diseases in the Japanese army, which had waged war every ten years, was viewed as a serious problem in connection with the decline in military power. The Meiji government, which had pursued a national policy of being prosperous and strong, analyzed that the reason for the continued decrease in the number of soldiers who were exempted from and evaded military service. However, as war broke out, the problem of the number of soldiers became bigger in infectious diseases and sexually transmitted diseases of soldiers. Therefore, the Ministry of the Army analyzed the effects of sexually transmitted diseases on the military by investigating the trend of sexually transmitted diseases. According to a survey conducted by the Ministry of the Army at the time, sexually transmitted diseases in the Japanese army accounted for 46.40‰ of the total number of soldiers, and the number of people exempted from military service and discharged due to sexually transmitted diseases reached 7‰. Therefore, in the process of establishing the emergency law in 1908, the Ministry of the Army considered sexually transmitted diseases as major infectious diseases and accurately investigated the types of sexually transmitted diseases, the causes of infection, and the treatment process. And the Japanese Ministry of Army strictly forbade the use of brothels to prevent sexually transmitted diseases. At the same time, strict mental training and condom use were encouraged. Despite these efforts of the army, the problem of sexually transmitted diseases in the army has not been solved. Afterwards, the Japanese Army installed comfort facilities in the expeditionary war that led to the deployment to Siberia and the Manchurian Incident to manage sexually transmitted diseases among soldiers.