Disciplining shit

Abstract

Japanese doctors built a Western-style public health system aimed at acute infectious diseases such as cholera, dysentery and typhoid fever in the late nineteenth century. While fecal–oral route diseases have received much attention in our historiography, little has been written on the most important part of disease causation. This article examines how researchers disciplined shit to make it legible to government institutions and agencies. I use the Foucauldian notion of discipline to reveal how effluent was turned into an object of knowledge. Doctors measured the amounts of waste produced by individuals and families to build sanitary septic tank systems. Researchers tested the resilience of micro-organisms in fecal matter and septic tanks and experimented on various ways to kill them. Once safe, nightsoil was recycled to support the rural economy. People were made to produce stool samples for the doctor. These were checked for bacteria or helminth eggs. The masses were taught how to defecate hygienically, their previous bathroom practices were censored, and they were told how to properly dispose of their waste. The government legislated human waste collection and disposal standards. Cities built processing and sewer systems to properly treat effluent. In short, doctors made shit knowable and thus controllable across the twentieth century. This is a crucial part of the larger story of sanitizing Japan that has hitherto remained unexplored.