竝存과 折衷의 二重奏 : 日帝下 韓醫學의 西洋醫學 認識과 受容

Abstract

Through the Student Doctor(Ui-saeng) Ordinance promulgated in November 1913, traditional Korean doctors were relegated to the lower status of Student Doctors, inferior to that of Western Doctors(Teacher Doctor, Ui-sa) or Traditional Doctors(Gentry Doctor, Ui-sa). As the Government-General of Korea(GGK, Joseon Chongdokbu) reorganized national health care system along the lines of Western Medicine(WM), the survival of Traditional Korean Medicine(TKM) became precarious with no institutional guarantee such as license of medical doctor or medical education. The GGK was inclined to construct a national health care system along the lines of WM, but Western doctors were few in number. Therefore, the GGK hoped to increase the number of Western doctors through the Licensing Exam of Western Doctor, and mobilized Student Doctors in public health work. However, there was little practical effect in the proliferation of Western doctors. Rather the GGK’s efforts to mobilize Student Doctors in public health work through the Licensing Exam of Student Doctor were strengthened. Because TKM had to learn WM to survive, they could not but accept WM in part. Most of the questions on the Licensing Exam of Student Doctor were based in WM. Despite little change in the Licensing Exam of Student Doctor, there was no fundamental change in the necessity of learning WM, thus rendering that the Student Doctor’s associations came in the end to accept WM. Despite the coercion of the GGK, TKM’s interests lay in medical treatment and pharmacopeia. To control the prescription of Western drugs, the GGK established a new examination in Western pharmacology. Earlier research explains the 1920s as a time of “East-West eclecticism” and the 1930s as a time of “recovery of traditional medicine.” On the whole, they place emphasis on TKM’s eclecticism, taking only what is need from the West by the East under the coercion of the GGK. However, my paper asserts that rather there was a coexistence of the two autonomous elements, the East and the West, within KTM. This coexistence was necessitated by the need to protect TKM’s identity. TKM’s coexistence and eclecticism represented TKM’s ideal and reality.