The History of Aesthetic Surgery in Early Twentieth-Century Japan

This article traces the origins, diffusion, and institutionalization of aesthetic surgery in prewar Japan. It focuses on the fi rst generation of cosmetic surgeons who legitimized procedures such as rhinoplasty and blepharoplasty for a population that previously held taboos against invasive surgery. It shows how surgeons imported discourses and surgical techniques from the West and how they used these procedures to fi t local ideals and demands. Plastic surgery in Japan, as elsewhere, catered to men when it was reconstructive, but the cosmetic aspect targeted women. This article also discusses how, by the 1920s, aesthetic procedures spread to colonial Korea.