A Study on the change and transformation of the image of the human body at the beginning of the Meiji era in Japan

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

In this project, I investigated the process through which the image of the human body changed in the field of the education; further, I investigated how these images were transformed not only by physicians but also laymen in the beginning of the Meiji era in Japan.In the field of medical education, I clarified the historical process, through which, human anatomical models were imported from France, after which these models were produced in Japan by Japanese artisans with traditional skills, under the guidance of Japanese anatomists. These models played an important role in medical professional training. This practice of using human anatomical models made by Japanese artisans continued in local medical schools till the mid 1880s.In the field of public elementary school education, I traced the process through which the traditional image of the human body gradually changed and transformed into the body images advocated by Western-style medical science..The results of this research were reported at the annual conferences of the Japanese Society of the History of Medicine, which were held in Ooita and Osaka; at the annual conferences of the Japanese Society of Anatomy at Kitazato University; and at the International Historical Conference: 150th Anniversary of the Beginning of Modern Western-style Medical Education in Japan, which was held in Nagasaki. I also discovered the various images of human bodies in elementary school textbooks in the beginning of the Meiji era in Japan. These images originated in the popular culture of the Edo period. In the future, Iintend to further research these points with my new project team.