255 의사학제19권제2호(통권제37호)2010년12월 KoreanJMedHist19ː255-298Dec.2010 ⓒ대한의사학회 pISSN1225-505X,eISSN2093-5609 In the Margins : Writing on Medicine in Korea After 1876 Sonja M. KIM＊ 1. Introduction 2. Writing About Medicine in Korea Before 1945 3. Post-1945 US Interventions in Medicine and Public Health 4. Translating Knowledge, Cultural Encounters, and Technology Transfer 5. Korean Medicine in the Making 6. Emerging Fields 1. Introduction In the United States, history of medicine as a subject of study has evolved from its origins as a minor concern in medical schools to a recognized field in its own right within the broader discipline of history. The increasing presence of historians instead of physicians in the writing of medical history corresponds with shifts in scholarship that reflect the application of insights in the humanities and social sciences. Currently, historians dominate the American Association for the History of Medicine, and several American universities offer humanities-oriented or interdisciplinary programs and degrees in the history of medicine at the undergraduate and/or graduate * Assistant Professor, Dept of Asian and Asian American Studies, Binghamton University, SUNY, USA phone : 1-607-777-3861 / e-mail : [email protected] 제19권 제2호(통권 제37호) 255-298, 2010년 12월 │255 Sonja M. KIM : In the Margins level.1) Article database and book searches on history of medicine confirm that the field has expanded its purview—contextualization of disease and medical knowledge within the social, political, and cultural milieu from which they emerge and are used; inclusion of patients’ perspectives and embodied experiences; use of race, class, gender, and empire in understanding differentiated practices; and recognition of medicine as a political and negotiated space. What remains conspicuously limited, however, is historical scholarship on medicine in areas of the world outside of North America and Western Europe. For example, a search for articles on Asia in the Bulletin of the History of Medicine, the official journal of the American Association for the History of Medicine, results primarily in reviews of books and relatively few articles. As of this writing, there are a few book reviews and mention of books received related to Korea, but no articles that deal primarily with Korea in the Bulletin of the History of Medicine. It is evident that in American academia, medical histories of Asia are minor. The universalizing discourse of biomedicine that places the qualifier “Asian” to medical-related practices and knowledge in Asia’s past continues to peripheralize Asia in the mainstream field of history of medicine. Moreover, scholars who do write on Asia often do on topics insofar as they relate to American or European experiences—activities of foreign medical missionaries, medical or public health systems instituted in Asia by imperial powers, US military 1) Medicine is also critically addressed in the expanding field of Science, Technology, and Society (STS). Some campuses that offer programs and degrees in the history of medicine include: Emory University, Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, Princeton University, UCLA, UCSF, UC Santa Barbara, University of Kansas University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, University of Pennsylvania, University of Washington, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Yale University. 256│ 醫史學 Sonja M. KIM : In the Margins medicine—or reflect “Asian” nature, as in what is touted as Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), Oriental Medicine, or other particularities perceived in Asian medicine. On the other hand, medicine, disease, and health practices have recently become increasingly common as subjects of study for American scholars in Asian studies.2) Medicine, for these scholars, is an effective lens through which to enhance understandings of societal transformations, translations of knowledge, technology transfer, modes of governmentality, construction of gender, nation- and empire-building, and urban space in Asia. Growing number of panels at the Annual Meetings of the Association for Asian Studies, for example, are devoted to medicine or related topics. In fact, in Asian studies, scholarship on medicine appears to outnumber that of science or technology. This is not to say that history of Asian science and technology is a neglected field. Some notable studies of science and technology in Asia include those by Francesca Bray, Benjamin Elman, Fa-ti Fan, Morris Low, Tessa Morris-Suzuki, and Nathan Sivin. It would perhaps not be off the mark to suggest that Nathan Sivin’s earlier pivotal studies of science and Chinese history paved the way for the recent surge in critical studies of medical history in Asia.3) 2) Some of these scholars include: Ruth Rogaski, Francesca Bray, Charlotte Furth, Angele Ki Che Leung, Yi-li Wu, Sabine Frühstück, Warwick Anderson, Larissa Heinrich, Ann Jannetta, and Susan Burns. Please refer to the following bibliography for some of the recent major publications on medicine in Asia and Asian America. 3) Nathan Sivin, Professor Emeritus of History and Sociology of Science at the University of Pennsylvania, is a prominent Sinologist in the areas of Chinese science, technology, medicine, and philosophy. He is considered by International Society for the History of East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine as one of the “second generation” of scholars after giants in the field such as Joseph Needham. Among his students include Marta Hanson and Benjamin Elman, who are also prominent in the fields of Chinese history of science and medicine. Benjamin Elman, in turn, has taught and/or advised 제19권 제2호(통권 제37호) 255-298, 2010년 12월 │257 Sonja M. KIM : In the Margins Language skills account partially for why it is Asian studies scholars who take the initiative in producing English-language histories of medicine in Asia. These scholars in turn often reject the homogenizing narratives in mainstream historiography of medicine, challenging conventional binaries of traditional/modern, superstition/science, or East/West often prevalent in histories of Asia. In this way, Asian history of medicine is very much a post- colonial practice. Nevertheless, the history of medicine remains a limited part of Asian studies. Moreover, even within this subfield of Asian studies, histories of Korea are even fewer. In many ways, studies of medicine in post-1876 Korea is few and far in between.4) This is not to say that there are no English-language historical studies on Korean medicine. The majority of these, however, are written by scholars in Korea or are doctoral dissertations. This is due in part to the perceived lack of significance Korean medicine has in the larger fields within which it is subsumed. As discussed above, history of Korean medicine is trivial in the mainstream field of history of medicine. Korean studies is a smaller subfield of Asian studies at large. Histories of Korean science, technology, and medicine have often been slighted in favor of their counterparts in China or Japan.5) Moreover, medicine as a focus is younger scholars in Korean studies of science, medicine, and technology such as John DiMoia, Min Suh Son, So Young Suh, and myself. There are too many works on Chinese history of science and medicine by Sivin to include. I have included only a few of his seminal pieces in the Supplementary Bibliography, along with a list of some of the recent important scholarship in the broader Asian history of science, technology, and medicine. 4) The year 1876 is used to mark the beginning of this historiographical survey as it is the year the Kanghwa Treaty was signed between the Chosŏn kingdom and Meiji Japan, thus signaling Korea’s entry into the open-port period, which catalyzed transformations conventionally understood as heralding Korea into modernity. Studies on medicine in Korea before this period are surveyed by So Young Suh in this issue. 5) Kim Yung-sik argues that close relations and intellectual exchanges between Korea 258│ 醫史學 Sonja M. KIM : In the Margins overshadowed by other topics valued within Korean studies in the States.6) Finally, scholars who have written on medicine in post-1876 Korea tend to do so as it relates to foreign mission endeavors in Korea, American involvement in the Korean War (1950-53) or post-liberation south Korean rehabilitation. For these reasons, writing on medicine in Korea is very much in the margins. The goals here are first, to survey American scholarship of medicine in Korea during the modern period, and second, to suggest perspectives studies of Korean medicine may offer to the fields of Korean history, Asian studies, and history of medicine in general. A major problem in writing this article is defining what is meant by American scholarship. Do we include scholarship by those trained and who primarily teach and research in Korea but also publish in the English language and/or in US-based journals? What and China in the past results in the “China-question,” which plagues Korean history of science, technology, and medicine. This shapes the historical inquiry to seek out Korean uniqueness or subsume Korean science, technology, or medicine as Chinese, thereby further marginalizing history of Korean medicine. One example of this is Korean (Oriental) Medicine, which is overlooked by scholars in their study of traditional medicine in Asia. (Y. Kim, 1998) 6) Some main concerns in US Korean studies include: civil society and democracy, intellectual history and historiography, social histories that address or counter nationalist historiography in Korea, nature of Japanese colonial rule, national division and the Korean War, economic development, and authoritarian politics on both sides of the border. See Kim Kyeong-il, “Over Contested Terrain: Currents and Issues of Korean Studies,” The Review of Korean Studies 6-2, 2003, pp. 151-190; Michael D. Shin, “Migungnae Hanggukhak kyebo [Geneology of US Korean Studies],” Yŏksa pip’yŏng [Critical studies of history] 59, 2002, pp. 76-98; John B. Duncan, “Migungnae Hanguk chŏn kŭndaesa yŏngu tonghyang [Research trends in US Historical Studies of Premodern Korea],” Yŏksa wa hyŏnsil [History and reality] 23, 1997, pp.