Early modern Japan and the problem of “drugs”

Abstract

When does health become politics? In Japan, the emergence of an imperial body politic tied to the enforcement of collective hygiene is commonly associated with the institutional and ideological reforms of the Meiji Period (1868–1912). The pervasive effect of new precepts in the realms of science and government, however, built on a previous evolution of concepts and practices that collectivized the government’s interest in regulated medical markets and public health. This chapter offers an overview of domestic and international factors that informed this process. Under the Tokugawa Shogunate (1603–1868), mercantilist ideas naturalized monopolies and sumptuary laws, but by the eighteenth century, an “industrious revolution” had politicized health and salubrious behavior, emphasizing connections between physical condition and personal choice, as reflected in the writings of Kaibara Ekiken (1630–1714). At the same time, disease control, reproductive policies and improved disaster resilience underlined that demographic development had been linked to economic and security concerns. This paved the way for those “modern” concepts that dominated the discourse on medicine, health and moral behavior in the late nineteenth century.