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 7KH7KHRU\DQG3UDFWLFHRI0DODULRORJ\LQ &RORQLDO7DLZDQ /LX6KL\XQJ In 1939, the Japanese colonial government in Taiwan circulated a film to promote the anti-malaria program.1 The film made the claim that during most of the colonial period in Taiwan (1895–1945), the government had advocated an integrated approach to malarial control. This involved prompt diagnosis, the administration of drugs, proper case management, improved health services, community-based support systems, the use of insecticide and bed-nets, proper environmental management geared towards vector control, as well as continuous research in developing effective anti-malarials. The film illustrated three themes of the Japanese anti-malaria campaign: modern malariology, treatment, and environmental improvements. Although the scenario in the film was always smooth and uplifting, the anti-malaria program was, in reality, full of controversies. The tension between advanced technology and simple sanitary measures, quinine prophylaxis and environmental control, as well as costly vector eradication and cheaper social mobilization, was never resolved. At the same time, there was a time lag between theoretical research in modern malariology and its practical application by the government, and the time taken to formulate and implement anti-malaria policies tested the efficacy of the colonial government. This chapter highlights these themes in a review of the history of Japanese malaria control efforts in colonial Taiwan. Through an examination of the colonial government’s responses to the problem of malaria, this chapter shows that the legacy of colonial medicine is essentially mixed and that the complex and sometimes contradictory nature of colonial medicine can only be understood by detailed contextual research. 0DODULDDQG.QRZOHGJHLQWKH,YRU\7RZHU Before modern malariology was introduced into Taiwan, two major hypotheses existed to explain the unknown fever: the notion of ]KDQJTL (foul air) from traditional Chinese medicine2 and the theory of “miasma” which was brought to the island by early Western visitors, including the medical missionaries. One such missionary was the Canadian George MacKay, who went to Taiwan in 1872 and lived there for about twenty years. He noted that malarial fever was the most common and most malignant disease in northern  /LX6KL\XQJ Taiwan and insisted that it was caused by “poisonous vapor” from the Danshui River during the summer season.3 Japanese colonial authorities in 1895 were well aware of the threat to the colonizers’ health posed by the many diseases on the island; in fact, many Japanese succumbed to disease when they began the occupation of Taiwan.4 The miasma theory also influenced the thinking of many Japanese concerned with public health before the widespread adoption of bacteriology as part of mainstream pathological studies. In the first government report on Taiwan’s sanitation in 1898, the Japanese scholar Tsuboi Jir indicated that Taiwan’s environment and the local people’s lifestyle were conducive to the spread of such diseases as cholera, plague, and malaria. Although he mentioned Robert Koch’s work on bacteriology in the report, he suggested that malaria was mainly caused by the “humid, hot, and poisonous” air on the island.5 Throughout the colonial period, malaria was classified as an endemic disease or IXGRE\Ŀ (literally illness caused by local characteristics) according to Japanese medical definitions. The disease was seen to be related to the nature of Taiwan’s environment and the “uncivilized” behavior of the indigenes—a theme which is explored more fully in Ku’s chapter in this book. This assertion guided the Japanese study of malaria in Taiwan for almost 50 years. The colonial government’s first reaction to modern malariology was to identify the patients rather than control the mosquitoes. This does not mean that Japanese malariologists in the 1910s were not interested in learning more about the anopheles mosquito. For example, Kinoshita Kashichir, a scientist-physician, was also a naturalist who believed that the understanding of human biology (and pathology) could be achieved only through an understanding of the biology of all living things. To identify and collect anopheles mosquitoes soon became fashionable in Japanese malariology. By 1933, malariologists Morishita Kaoru and Katagai Tatsuo had shown that 69.2% of $QRSKHOHVPLQLPXV and 20.8% of $QRSKHOHV VLQHQVLV fed on human blood. They suggested that $QRSKHOHVPLQLPXV was the major malarial vector in Taiwan, and $QRSKHOHVVLQHQVLV was the most prevalent species on the plains.6 In 1936, Morishita listed fourteen species of anopheles mosquitoes found in Taiwan. In 1943 other malariologists, Omori Nobuhiko and Noda Hiroshi, discovered $QRSKHOHVEDUEXPEURVXV on the eastern coast of the...

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