Editing History of medicine (section)

===== Japan =====
[[File:Doctor_(Kusakabe_Kimbei).jpg|thumb|A doctor checks a patient's pulse in Meiji-era Japan.]]
European ideas of modern medicine were spread widely through the world by medical missionaries, and the dissemination of textbooks. Japanese elites enthusiastically embraced Western medicine after the [[Meiji Restoration]] of the 1860s. However they had been prepared by their knowledge of the Dutch and German medicine, for they had some contact with Europe through the Dutch. Highly influential was the 1765 edition of Hendrik van Deventer's pioneer work ''Nieuw Ligt'' ("A New Light") on Japanese obstetrics, especially on Katakura Kakuryo's publication in 1799 of ''Sanka Hatsumo'' ("Enlightenment of Obstetrics").<ref>{{cite journal | vauthors = van der Weiden RM, Uhlenbeck GC | title = European 18th-century obstetrical pioneers in Japan: a new light in the empire of the sun | journal = Journal of Medical Biography | volume = 18 | issue = 2 | pages = 99–101 | date = May 2010 | pmid = 20519709 | doi = 10.1258/jmb.2010.010006 | s2cid = 22701750 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | vauthors = Ciriacono S |year=2010 |title=Scientific Transfer between Europe and Japan: The Influence of Dutch and German Medicine from the Edo Period to the Meiji Restoration |journal=Comparativ: Leipziger Beiträge zur Universalgeschichte und Vergleichenden Gesellschaftsforschung |volume=20 |issue=6 |pages=134–53}}</ref> A cadre of Japanese physicians began to interact with Dutch doctors, who introduced smallpox vaccinations. By 1820 Japanese ranpô medical practitioners not only translated Dutch medical texts, they integrated their readings with clinical diagnoses. These men became leaders of the modernization of medicine in their country. They broke from Japanese traditions of closed medical fraternities and adopted the European approach of an open community of collaboration based on expertise in the latest scientific methods.<ref>{{cite book | vauthors = Jannetta AB |title=The Vaccinators: Smallpox, Medical Knowledge, and the 'Opening' of Japan |date=2007 |publisher=Stanford University Press |location=Stanford, California |isbn=978-0-8047-7949-4}}</ref>

[[Kitasato Shibasaburō]] (1853–1931) studied bacteriology in Germany under [[Robert Koch]]. In 1891 he founded the Institute of Infectious Diseases in Tokyo, which introduced the study of bacteriology to Japan. He and French researcher [[Alexandre Yersin]] went to Hong Kong in 1894, where; Kitasato confirmed Yersin's discovery that the bacterium ''Yersinia pestis'' is the agent of the plague. In 1897 he isolated and described the organism that caused dysentery. He became the first dean of medicine at Keio University, and the first president of the Japan Medical Association.<ref>{{cite book | vauthors = Byrne JP |title=Encyclopedia of Pestilence, Pandemics, and Plagues |date=2008 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn= 978-0-313-34101-4 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5Pvi-ksuKFIC&pg=PA339 |page=339 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book | vauthors = Linton DS | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XUoLAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA57 |title=Emil Von Behring: Infectious Disease, Immunology, Serum Therapy |publisher=American Philosophical Society |year=2005 |isbn=978-0-87169-255-9 |page=57}}</ref>

Japanese physicians immediately recognized the values of X-Rays. They were able to purchase the equipment locally from the Shimadzu Company, which developed, manufactured, marketed, and distributed X-Ray machines after 1900.<ref>{{cite journal | vauthors = Donzé PY | title = Making medicine a business in Japan: Shimadzu Co. and the diffusion of radiology (1900–1960) | journal = [[Gesnerus]] | volume = 67 | issue = 2 | pages = 241–262 | year = 2010 | pmid = 21417169 | doi = 10.1163/22977953-06702004 | doi-access = free }}</ref> Japan not only adopted German methods of public health in the home islands, but implemented them in its colonies, especially Korea and Taiwan, and after 1931 in Manchuria.<ref>{{cite journal | vauthors = Lynteris C | title = From Prussia to China: Japanese colonial medicine and Gotō Shinpei's combination of medical police and local self-administration | journal = Medical History | volume = 55 | issue = 3 | pages = 343–347 | date = July 2011 | pmid = 21792258 | pmc = 3143861 | doi = 10.1017/s0025727300005378 }}</ref> A heavy investment in sanitation resulted in a dramatic increase of life expectancy.<ref>{{cite book | vauthors = Liu MS |title=Prescribing colonization : the role of medical practices and policies in Japan-ruled Taiwan, 1895–1945 |date=2009 |publisher=Association for Asian Studies |location=Ann Arbor, Michigan |isbn=978-0-924304-57-6 | page = 286 }}</ref>