Public Health and the Diffusion of Vaccination in Japan

Abstract

Abstract At the end of the nineteenth century Japan was a vigorous exporter of sanitation and public health programmes to the rest of East Asia. Certainly such a role for Japan could not have been predicted half a century earlier. In 1850, Japan was a poor and isolated island nation about to be descended upon by the great Western powers seeking new markets to exploit. And Japan’s long-established political system-a loose conglomerate of feudal kingdoms ruled by a Tokugawa shogun was approaching a final state of collapse. In 1868, a young and energetic cadre of reformers successfully ousted the shogun, and took over the reins of government in the name of the Meiji Emperor-an event known as the Meiji Restoration. The new Meiji leaders had monumental problems on their hands, but one of the earliest and most enduring themes to emerge among government initiatives was a strong commitment to the principles of public health, even though the term ‘public health’ was new to them. One reason for this focus was the loss of control of Japan’s ports which foreign ships with virulent germs from afar could enter unbidden for the first time in over 200 years. A second reason was that a surprising number of Meiji leaders had been trained in medicine-in many cases in a rarefied form of Western medicine-and it soon became apparent to them that public health was the idea of the moment. The concepts and policies of public health would not only help to solve problems at home, but would connect Japan with the Western world of technology and science.