Vaccine Theft in 1852/53
In the first month of 1853, Kasahara Hakuō sent a letter to Ōno to notify his colleagues of a man named Koyama Yōju, who was rumored to be conducting vaccinations in Ota village.
(For a translation of the relevant passage in the "Vaccine Travel Record," click here.)
Hakuō sought to confirm two particularly worrisome points. First, had Ōno’s vaccinators shared any vaccines with that man? Second, did the man possess the necessary training to distinguish between true and false pocks? Hakuō reminded his colleagues of an “agreement from a previous year” that held them responsible for preventing unauthorized vaccinations within their domain. Although Hakuō signaled some understanding for his colleagues’ potential lapse of oversight—after all, this exclave was quite far away from the castle town—he professed to be “concerned for the sake of our profession.” By this, he probably meant that an ignorant and greedy vaccinator might undermine trust in the new treatment.
Hakuō was anxious not to offend his Ōno colleagues over what might have been a mere misunderstanding. He was much more explicit in his personal notes, which followed his copy of the letter. Hakuō had learned about Yōju from Naitō Dōitsu, a physician in Itō village, Sabae domain. Dōitsu’s father Teian had signed the vaccinators’ oath in 1850 as one of three physicians from Sabae domain. His home village Itō, which was somewhat removed from the bulk of Sabae’s territory, shared a border with three of Nishikata’s villages (for locations, click on the pins on the map above). According to Dōitsu, Koyama Yōju had secretly stolen vaccine from him by “having a person come in contact with it,” probably by sending a child to Dōitsu to be vaccinated and then “tapping” the child for transmissions. Dōitsu said that when he confronted Yōju over the matter, the man apologized and asked for an official transmission. But when Dōitsu asked Hakuō for his opinion, the latter insisted that Yōju could only request to become part of the network if he brought his illegitimate vaccinations to a complete stop. Yōju’s reaction is unknown, but four years later, Ōno’s physicians suggested in a letter to Hakuō that when they investigated this rumor back in 1853, “nobody was conducting vaccinations any more at that time.”
It seems that Yōju had failed to gain access to the vaccinators’ network. He had flouted professional etiquette as well as domain borders. Yet in stealing the vaccine, he had traced the most convenient path the vaccine could take, namely between people living side by side within the same region.
