UC Berkeley UC Berkeley Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title The Exponent of Breath: The Role of Foreign Evangelical Organizations in Combating Japan's Tuberculosis Epidemic of the Early 20th Century Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/32d241sf Author Perelman, Elisheva Avital Publication Date 2011 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California The Exponent of Breath: The Role of Foreign Evangelical Organizations in Combating Japan’s Tuberculosis Epidemic of the Early 20th Century By Elisheva Avital Perelman A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the Requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Andrew E. Barshay, Chair Professor John Lesch Professor Alan Tansman Fall 2011 © Copyright by Elisheva Avital Perelman 2011 All Rights Reserved Abstract The Role of Foreign Evangelical Organizations in Combating Japan’s Tuberculosis Epidemic of the Early 20th Century By Elisheva Avital Perelman Doctor of Philosophy in History University of California, Berkeley Professor Andrew E. Barshay, Chair Tuberculosis existed in Japan long before the arrival of the first medical missionaries, and it would survive them all. Still, the epidemic during the period from 1890 until the 1920s proved salient because of the questions it answered. This dissertation analyzes how, through the actions of the government, scientists, foreign evangelical leaders, and the tubercular themselves, a nation defined itself and its obligations to its subjects, and how foreign evangelical organizations, including the Young Men’s Christian Association (the Y.M.C.A.) and The Salvation Army, sought to utilize, as much as to assist, those in their care. With both Japanese government officials and foreign evangelical leaders employing moral entrepreneurism in their approach to the victims of the nation’s epidemic, the tubercular became pawns in the relationships between the Meiji and Taishō governments, the Y.M.C.A., The Salvation Army, St. Luke’s Hospital, and the Omi Mission. Within this analytical framework, this dissertation also examines such issues as how Protestantism allowed some of the disease’s victims to withstand societal stigma, and how its proponents viewed their obligation to their fellow man; how concepts of public health changed when faced with a disease with no known cure, and how much of the attempts to respond to the disease fell victim to partisan politics and personality disputes; how gender affected national, societal, and religious rights, and how disease affected perceptions of gendered behavior. Finally, this work analyzes how the value of human life was parsed and differentiated, particularly vis-à-vis utility to both the Japanese nation and the state of Protestantism in the early 20th century. 1 Table of Contents Acknowledgements ii Introduction 1 Chapter I: Consumption and the Chrysanthemum 5 The Disease 5 The Scientist 12 The Politician 18 The Textile Worker 31 Chapter II: The Cross and the Chrysanthemum 39 Meiji’s Foreign Evangelists 39 The Russo-Japanese War 46 Opposition to Christianity 47 Persistence of Christianity in the face of “Rationalism” 51 The Rise of Medical Missions 56 Chapter III: The Y.M.C.A. 60 Finding a Place in Society 60 The Role of Army Work 63 Work during Peace time 78 The Cost of Work Among the Poor 84 Cultivating the Friendship of More Prominent Citizens 96 Chapter IV: The Salvation Army 100 The Arrival 100 Japanese Appeal 107 The Possibilities of Tuberculosis 113 Chapter V: The Individuals 127 The Tale of Two Men 127 Rudolf Bolling Teusler 127 William Merrell Vories 144 Conclusions 155 Bibliography 160 i I have benefited from the considerable assistance of a number of individuals and organizations worldwide, without whose instruction, support, and kindness this dissertation would not have been completed. At the University of California, Berkeley, I have been lucky to work with the members of my committee, Alan Tansman, Jack Lesch, and, particularly, Andrew Barshay, men whose scholarship and tutelage have proved both necessary and inspirational. In addition to them, Irv Scheiner was a kind and calming presence. Mabel Lee is rightly deemed the backbone of the department, and her assistance, both bureaucratic and psychological, was considerable. Both my department and the Center for Japanese Studies have provided necessary funding for my research and writing, and for their continued support, I am incredibly grateful. Jonathan Lipman of Mount Holyoke College and Corky White of Boston University have always proved willing to assist me for well over a decade, and I can never thank them enough. The staff at the Social Welfare History Archives, particularly David Klaassen, and the Kautz Family YMCA Archives, particularly Dagmar Getz and Ryan Bean, at the University of Minnesota made my research trips both extremely successful and pleasurable. The funding provided by the Clarke Chambers Travel Fellowship allowed me the opportunity to conduct research and to meet some of the nicest archivists I have ever met. The staff at the Archives of the Episcopal Church in Austin, Texas, particularly Lauren Kata, were both helpful and thoughtful, as were their counterparts, including Susan Mitchem, at The Salvation Army National Archives in Alexandria, Virginia, and visiting both proved to be the highlights of trips to locations that are interesting in their own right. In Japan, I was fortunate to have researched at The National Council of YMCAs in Japan, The Salvation Army Research Room Archives, Ōmikyōdaisha, Vuo-rizu Kinenbyōin, the Kitasato Memorial Medical Library at Keio University, Kitasato Kenkyūjo—Kitasato kinenshitsu and Kitasato Museum at Kitasato University, and enjoyed the assistance and friendship of National Secretary Saito Fusae of the YMCA, Commissioner Asano Hiroshi and his fellow officers at The Salvation Army Research Room Archives, Secretary-General Fujita Soutaro of the Omi Brotherhood Foundation, and Hospital Administrator Suō Masashi of the Vories Memorial Hospital, Executive Officer Tachi Tazuko at the Kitasato Memorial Library, and Professors Danbara Hirofumi and Iwai Y. at Kitasato University. I was also honored to have worked with Fukuda “Mad Matt” Mahito at the University of Nagoya, and enjoyed every minute of it. My research trips to Japan were financially assisted by funding from my department and from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, both of which were truly generous. I have been extremely lucky to have among my work colleagues a number of individuals whom I consider to be friends. Dan Monroe, particularly, has been an understanding boss and advisor, permitting me the opportunity to complete my own work. I owe my sanity to the support and friendship of Kristen Hiestand, Tim Cooper, Sara Osenton, Mark Erdmann, Murayama Yukako, and Abigayl Perelman. My parents, Seth and Leslie Perelman have acted as editors and philosophers, while Henny Schwarz, my Oma, has also kept me hard at it with a constant supply of “Oma cookies.” Finally, I dedicate this work with all love and gratitude to my immediate family: Charlie, Reggie, Lucia, and especially my husband, Steven E. Dale. I am blinking slowly. ii Love is anterior to life, Posterior to death, Initial of creation, and The exponent of breath. Emily Dickinson Introduction According to both historical and contemporary scholarship, to be alive during the Progressive Era was to be a witness to miracles. The reshaping of American labor politics, the modern agricultural irrigation system, the application of the pasteurization process, all were considered modern miracles. Whether religious, economic, or scientific, miracles celebrated action. Modern politics, too, provided the actions that composed miracles. To many individuals worldwide, Japan’s modernization under the Meiji emperor (1868-1912) was nothing short of miraculous. And, indeed, Japan’s government undertook a myriad of actions to miraculously transform Japan from what American businessman and author Carl Crow deemed a “secluded nation of Asiatics” to a nation both “after the European pattern,” and so successfully modernized that “she is now able to compete with her teachers.”1 Yet inaction is equally the domain of politics, and the willful inaction, as much as its miraculous actions, should define Japanese national modernization from the 1880s and 1890s to the 1920s. The victims of tuberculosis, an epidemic whose devastation worsened with the accomplishments of modernity, were populating the factories and villages of Japan’s so-called family-state. Their collective existence and their shortened individual lives brought into question the nature of both Japanese society and the Japanese state—how could a nation whose medical and scientific achievements were as extraordinary as Japan’s justify inaction in the face of an epidemic, and how could a nation whose industrial achievements were as extraordinary as Japan’s justify action that would result in a work stoppage? Under such politicians as Ōkuma Shigenobu, the latter proved the more convincing argument. Since addressing the issue would be to acknowledge problems inherent in the state’s effort to modernize along industrial lines, so long as the epidemic remained limited to society’s neglected, primarily the young, impoverished female textile workers (upon whose backs the society was built), both the epidemic and its victims could be, and