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• 1 2021-01-22T10:16:08-05:00 Excerpt from the "Vaccine Travel Record," 1857 (1) - translation 4 Translation of excerpt from the "vaccine travel record," (1857) 1 plain 2021-06-02T17:30:33-04:00 Maren Ehlers

  A Separate Clinic in Ōno [1857]

  [Source: Hakushinki, pp. 238-239; translated by Maren Ehlers]

  On the 15th day of the fifth intercalary month, Hayashi Unkei came and said that he wanted to notify me that they were opening a separate clinic in Ota village in the distant fief of Nishikata, and were letting Koyama Yōju conduct vaccinations there.

  On this occasion, he brought 100 hiki of gold for sweets and five bags of tobacco. After we had exchanged formalities, he said: “When you informed us the other year that there was someone in Ota village performing vaccinations, we replied that that there had certainly been a rumor about it, but nobody was conducting vaccinations any more at that time. We said that we did not know of any such person, though we would continue to investigate. After that, we once again heard of a person conducting vaccinations, and when each of us inquired, we learned that this time, the domain representative [rusuban] of that area had given orders to a person named Koyama Yōju and initiated vaccinations, not knowing that we had earlier sworn an oath at the domain office [of Fukui]. We thus made him stop his vaccinations through the domain representative, who was himself ordered out of office afterwards. We have gravely misbehaved in this matter and earnestly ask for your indulgence.” Thus he urgently explained himself.

  I responded that this was a matter of the past and nothing could be done about it. From now on they should exercise control so the rules would be properly followed.

  [The physician from Ōno] requested: “Because Koyama has again expressed a desire to openly perform vaccinations at this time, we carefully instructed him in Ōno on the assessment of pocks and other things. On the 7th day of this month, we transmitted the vaccine to him. Two days ago, on the 13th, we also went to his place and imposed on him rules about all kinds of things on the basis of an inspection. On a related note, we will also take Koyama here so that you can face him in person and kindly give him a new transmission of the vaccine whenever he runs out of it in the future.”

  In the past, Koyama, the man in question, had secretly taken vaccines from Naitō Teian [Dōitsu’s father] of Itō village in Sabae domain and begun to vaccinate. He also received vaccines from the vaccinators’ society of Fuchū. Furthermore, the Fuchū people once came here to ask me whether they should transmit the vaccine to this man in case he requested a transmission. I told them at the time that I had been told he was neither from Fuchū nor did he represent a separate clinic on Ōno’s side, and that therefore they should please hand the matter over to me if he came and made a request in the future.

  I responded [to the physician from Ōno] that if a request came from Ota village for a vaccine transmission, it could not be addressed without Ōno’s domain leadership [goyōnin] sending a correspondence to the leading officials at the domain office in Fukui. Also, if we were talking about a re-transmission to Ōno, I would gladly provide it to them, but that they had been helping us out greatly in Ōno for quite a while. They had not let the vaccine go extinct even once, which everyone agreed was not a negligible achievement. I would consider it a pity if they had to request a retransmission due to extinction on this occasion. However, if they would just issue a notice without further ado that they would open a separate clinic in Ota, I would inform the other chapters of the association about it. I said I recommended this course of action because if I did so, the nearby clinics would probably transmit the vaccine to Ota no matter where they were located. I would be happy to meet with Koyama Yōju and allow him to become my disciple, but if things were done the way I suggested, this would no longer be necessary and I would not need to meet with him. [The Ōno physician] responded that if this were the case, they would choose to confer the status of a separate clinic as explained, and would make him strictly observe the oath in the future. Then he went home.

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