근대 일본의 종두: 제도 정비와 실제

Abstract

Studies on smallpox vaccination in nineteenth-century Japan have mainly focused on the importation of cowpox vaccine and the implementation of smallpox vaccination, emphasizing the medical achievements of doctors practicing Western medicine (蘭方醫) in the late Edo period. As a result, smallpox vaccination of the early Meiji period has not garnered much scholarly attention. In order to understand the characteristics of smallpox vaccination during the early Meiji period, this paper aims to examine the practice of “Jennerization,” which began at the end of the Edo period, and the process of institutionalizing smallpox vaccination in the early Meiji period. It analyzes regulations for a vaccinator (種痘醫), whose role in smallpox vaccination changed over time, and legal and institutional support for compulsory vaccination. In the process, smallpox vaccination came to be practiced no longer by a vaccinator but by a doctor with a license from the government, and as the vaccinator’s technique of “Jennerization” became standardized, smallpox vaccination transformed from a matter of individual competency to that of national/government competency. In addition, in order to institutionalize its implementation, the Meiji government introduced supplementary measures, such as laws and regulations that mandated those who got vaccinated to report their cases to the government, offered free vaccination for the poor, and required compulsory vaccination before entering elementary school. The various regulations for smallpox vaccination manifested both pre-modern and modern elements, which were characterized by the establishment of the vaccination institute (種痘館) and the modern medical approaches of its members. They suggest that there was continuity between pre-modern medicine (蘭方醫學) and the infectious disease control measures of the early Meiji period. At the same time, they offered a case study of the process by which the Meiji government modernized these regulations.