Medical Women in the Japanese Empire Sources and Critique

Introduction: Restoring the Voices of Medical Women in the Japanese Empire
Hiro Fujimoto, Aya Homei, Ellen Gardner Nakamura

1. Critique: Layers of Translation: A Linguistic Strategy for the Professionalization of Midwifery in the Early Meiji Period
Aya Homei

Text: A Manual for Midwives
Kido Rin, Translation by Aya Homei

2. Critique: With Scornful Laughter Rumbling in Her Ears: Ogino Ginko’s Critics and Supporters
Ellen Gardner Nakamura

Text: The Career of the First Modern Female Doctor
Ogino Ginko, Interviewed by Suzuki Genko, Translation by Ellen Gardner Nakamura

3. Critique: “Home Doctors”: Yoshioka Yayoi’s Strategy to Promote Women Doctors in Modern Japan
Akane Meguro

Text: The Future of Women Doctors and Their Missions
Yoshioka Yayoi, Translation by Akane Meguro

4. Critique: Glass Ceilings and Factory Floors: Kondō Toshiko and the Dawn of Public Health Nutrition in Japan
Nathan Hopson

Text: Rootwork
Kondō Toshiko, Translation by Nathan Hopson

5. Critique: Resilient Paths: Opportunities and Challenges for Chinese Women Doctors Trained in Imperial Japan
Haiying Hou

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
Zhang Xueqin, Translation by Haiying Hou

6. Critique: Carving Space: Women Physicians in Colonial Korea
Sonja M. Kim

Text: A Roundtable with Women Physicians
Translation by Sonja M. Kim

7. Critique: Navigating Gender and Medicine: A Comparative Study of Female Doctors in Colonial Taiwan
Wei-ti Chen

Text: An Interview with Shi Man
Shi Man, Interviewed by Yu Chien-Ming, Translation by Wei-ti Chen

8. Critique: Nursing War: Military, Medicine, and the Question of Femininity in Modern Japan
Reut Harari

Text: A Military Nurse
Fujimura Chiyo, Translation by Reut Harari

9. Critique: Providing Care on the Militarized Islands: Nursing Activities in Wartime Okinawa
Asako Masubuchi

Text: District Nurse Activities Amidst the War
Gushi Yae, Translation by Asako Masubuchi

10. Critique: Saving the Lives of Settlers: District Nurses and Rural Healthcare in Hokkaido
Hiro Fujimoto

Text: The Spirit of Compassion: Diaries of District Nurses in Hokkaido
Edited by Maki Tetsuo, Translation by Hiro Fujimoto

Biography

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).