Vaccination and Western Medicine — The Rangaku Doctors Who Fought Smallpox
In an age of scarce medicine, smallpox was one of the most dreaded of diseases. To confront it, the physicians of the Bakumatsu strove to spread a method of prevention brought from the West — vaccination.
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A feared disease
Smallpox was highly contagious, took lives, and often left scars even in those who recovered. In an age with no effective cure, people could only fear it.
Into this came a technique born in the West: cowpox vaccination. By giving a mild inoculation of cowpox — a disease of cattle — to build resistance to smallpox, the method was a landmark achievement of preventive medicine.
The challenge of the rangaku physicians
Physicians trained in rangaku (Dutch learning) labored to root this vaccination in Japan. Ogata Kōan, who opened the Tekijuku, is especially known for his great contribution to its spread, establishing a vaccination center in Osaka.
Spreading a new medicine was no easy task. Distrust and prejudice toward the unfamiliar Western technique ran deep, but the physicians patiently built up results and won the people's trust.
The spread of Western medicine
The spread of vaccination also became an occasion for heightened interest in Western medicine itself. Anatomy that grasped the workings of the body accurately, new surgical techniques, and more — Western medicine greatly changed Japanese medical practice.
As the opening of Japan advanced, direct instruction by foreign physicians also became possible, and the way to a modern medical system was opened.
Learning that protects life
The efforts of the rangaku physicians over vaccination expressed a stance of putting learning to use for people's lives and well-being. To draw on Western knowledge to fight real disease, rather than leaving it as desk knowledge — there lay the true worth of Bakumatsu medicine.
Many a nameless life was saved by their challenge.
The figures who studied Dutch learning can be traced in Bakumatsu Figures; related culture, in Bakumatsu Culture.
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