A Study of Historical Geography on the Prevalence of Rinderpest during the Meiji Era

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During the Meiji Era, the prevalence of rinderpest which basically entered from the Korea Peninsula. was common in western Japan and conseqently a total of 80,000 cattle died or were killed throughout Japan.The spread of rinderpest germs depended on the existing channel for marketing working cattle and, in addition, on the newly developed channels for marketing dairy cows and beef cattle in the urban areas.There were two ways of preventing rinderpest. One was to quarantine the imported Korean cattle at the maritime ports whether they carried rinderpest or not, and the other was to prevent its spread domestically at the local level.In the long run, the Meiji goverment sucessfully completed the system of maritime quarantine by means of the annexation of Korea to Japan(1910) which allowed perfection of a two-step quarantine process and commpletion of the inland front cordon.These invasions of rinderpest frequently happened and caused huge damage to the marketing channels for cattle throughout Japan. At the end of the Meiji Era, the system of marketing livestock was newly developed because of the establishment of the animal quarantine rule (1906) and moreover the execution of the slaughter act(1906) and livestock marketing act (1911).