Training Medical Researchers in Korea during the Japanese Colonial Period (1910–1945)

Abstract

Abstract Western medicine integrated laboratory science with clinical experience in the nineteenth century. A similar process of integration took place in the non-Western world, though somewhat later, and with differences derived from specific historical and social contexts. This article describes this process in Korea, where Western medicine was first introduced in the 1880s, and medical education followed soon afterwards. During the Japanese colonial rule, which began in 1910, medical research was accommodated at the Severance Medical College, which was established and supported by Western missionaries, as well as the government medical college and the Faculty of Medicine at Keijo Imperial University in Seoul. This paper surveys the history of medical research from the introduction of Western medicine into Korea in the late nineteenth century to the appearance of first Korean medical researchers during the colonial period.