Medical Women in the Japanese Empire

Fujimoto, Homei and Nakamura bring together the perspectives of women engaging in professional medical work across the expanse of the modern Japanese Empire (1868-1945).

Hiro Fujimoto is Assistant Professor at the Heidelberg Centre for Transcultural Studies, Heidelberg University, Germany. He works on the history of medicine in modern Japan from global and gender perspectives. He wrote several articles in Japanese and English, including "Women, Missionaries, and Medical Professions" (Japan Forum, 2020). Aya Homei is Reader in Japanese Studies at the University of Manchester, United Kingdom. She researches the history of medicine and science in modern Japan, focusing on population and reproduction. Her recent publications include Science for Governing Japan's Population (2023). Ellen Gardner Nakamura is Senior Lecturer in Asian Studies at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. She specializes in the social history of medicine in nineteenth-century Japan. Her most recent monograph is Japanese Medical Lives in Transformation: Contesting Modernity in the Late Nineteenth Century (2025).

Introduction: Restoring the Voices of Medical Women in the Japanese Empire 1. Critique: Layers of Translation: A Linguistic Strategy for the Professionalization of Midwifery in the Early Meiji Period Text: A Manual for Midwives 2. Critique: With Scornful Laughter Rumbling in Her Ears: Ogino Ginko's Critics and Supporters Text: The Career of the First Modern Female Doctor 3. Critique: "Home Doctors": Yoshioka Yayoi's Strategy to Promote Women Doctors in Modern Japan Text: The Future of Women Doctors and Their Missions 4. Critique: Glass Ceilings and Factory Floors: Kond- Toshiko and the Dawn of Public Health Nutrition in Japan Text: Rootwork 5. Critique: Resilient Paths: Opportunities and Challenges for Chinese Women Doctors Trained in Imperial Japan Texts: About Myself; Discussing Medical Equipment on the Home Front in Light of Martyr Liang's Death; Impressions of a Woman Doctor Returning to China after Studying in Japan 6. Critique: Carving Space: Women Physicians in Colonial Korea Text: A Roundtable with Women Physicians 7. Critique: Navigating Gender and Medicine: A Comparative Study of Female Doctors in Colonial Taiwan Text: An Interview with Shi Man 8. Critique: Nursing War: Military, Medicine, and the Question of Femininity in Modern Japan Text: A Military Nurse 9. Critique: Providing Care on the Militarized Islands: Nursing Activities in Wartime Okinawa Text: District Nurse Activities Amidst the War 10. Critique: Saving the Lives of Settlers: District Nurses and Rural Healthcare in Hokkaido Text: The Spirit of Compassion: Diaries of District Nurses in Hokkaido