Bodies and Structures 2.0: Deep-Mapping Modern East Asian HistoryMain MenuGet to Know the SiteGuided TourShow Me HowA click-by-click guide to using this siteModulesRead the seventeen spatial stories that make up Bodies and Structures 2.0Tag MapExplore conceptsComplete Grid VisualizationDiscover connectionsGeotagged MapFind materials by geographic locationLensesCreate your own visualizationsWhat We LearnedLearn how multivocal spatial history changed how we approach our researchAboutFind information about contributors and advisory board members, citing this site, image permissions and licensing, and site documentationTroubleshootingA guide to known issuesAcknowledgmentsThank youDavid Ambaras1337d6b66b25164b57abc529e56445d238145277Kate McDonald306bb1134bc892ab2ada669bed7aecb100ef7d5fThis project was made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Cowpox transfer scene, depicting both the child serving as "pox base" (right) and the receiving child (left)
1media/Hirose Genkyō image from Nihon shutō hajime_thumb.jpg2020-11-24T18:57:24-05:00Maren Ehlers18502c6775e5db37b999ee7b08c8c075867ca31d359Hirose Genkyō, "Shintei gyūtō kihō" (The Miraculous Cowpox Method, Revised Edition), 1849plain2021-09-09T14:32:41-04:001849Kyoto University Rare Materials Digital Archive, https://rmda.kulib.kyoto-u.ac.jp/item/rb000019392020121011480120201210114801Kyoto University Main LibraryUsed with permission.Maren EhlersME-0038Maren Ehlers18502c6775e5db37b999ee7b08c8c075867ca31d
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1media/shugyutosho.background.jpegmedia/japanese_vaccine_merge_2.jpg2019-11-18T17:16:29-05:00Chains of Bodies: Village Relay in Fukui Domain38image_header49252021-10-06T10:35:04-04:001849Maren EhlersHirose GenkyōKasahara Ryōsaku
Although Kasahara Ryōsaku and his colleagues hoped to distribute the vaccine as widely as possible, they did not prioritize the immunization of rural subjects but concentrated resources in the castle town. Even in the 1860s, over ten years after the introduction of the vaccine, rural parents in Fukui domain still appear to have taken their children into town. In part, the failure to penetrate the countryside simply reflected a lack of money and trained doctors and administrators. But the spatial concentration also had to do with the vaccine's constant need for unvaccinated bodies and the low population density in the countryside.
This pathway explores how networks (structures of village and domain rule), vehicles (the bodies of children), and the physical geography interacted to sustain vaccinations in the countryside through arm-to-arm transfers. Spatial imagination mattered as well because villages were not just places of low population density, but also situated at the remote end of an imaginative geography of periphery and center.
This pathway draws on research by Ban Isoshiro and Yanagisawa Fumiko.
