About the book
After opening the door to foreign countries in the middle of the 19th century, Japan engaged itself into the process of nation building. Modernization was a key component and medicine became a significant factor in controlling the population (1). By using the term medical women, the authors propose a fresh framework to encompass the wider range of women working in a variety of medical professions, which includes doctors, nurses, midwives and nutritionists.(2) These voices, collected from books, magazines, diaries and oral histories, speak about the everyday challenges faced in their medical studies and workplace.
Throughout our conversation, we will tackle important historical questions such as: How did women enter the domain of medical professions and try to establish their positions? How did the professionalization of medicine and healthcare affect the careers of women? How did these medical women embrace the ideology of “good wife, wise mother” ideology or femininity? How did the process of empire‑building affect the lives and works of medical women from the peripheries of the empire and what was their strategy to survive? What were the commonalities and differences between women doctors, nurses, midwives, and nutritionists?
Editors:
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 Associate Professor of 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).
Discussant:
Amelia Bonea, Lecturer in Global History of Science, Technology and Medicine, Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine, University of Manchester
Moderator:
Adrian Matus, Editor for the “Democracy and Culture” section at the Review of Democracy.
