Building a strong and healthy empire: the critical period of building colonial medicine in Taiwan

Abstract

This article focuses on fundamental events in the establishment of colonial medicine in Japanese Taiwan (1895–1945). It aims to analyze factors shaping the Japanese design of colonial medicine. Influenced by a new German-Japanese medical tradition, public health officials in colonial Taiwan such as Gotō Shinpei emphasized the distinctiveness of the tropical environment and the unhygienic behavior of the inhabitants of Taiwan. They sought to control epidemic disease through public health intervention and medical reform, improving the living environment for Japanese settlers and ‘controlling’ the unsanitary Taiwanese. This study underscores the importance of colonial factors beyond the increase of medical facilities and sanitary concepts that profoundly influenced the health of the colonial population in the early occupation period. It explores colonial medicine in the context of the westernization of Japanese medicine and of compromises necessitated by the colonial context.