| Abstract |
The purpose of this article is to analyze the Public Health Physician Reports in order to illustrate the characteristics of the sanitary policies of Taiwan Sōtokufu(Taiwan Governor-General's Office). With the prefecture ordinance N.O. 8: Regulation for Taiwan Public Health Physician issued in June, 1896, the “P. H. Physicians” were dispatched and stationed at various important districts in Taiwan. They were not only curers who treated the inhabitants’ sickness and attended to their injuries, but also sanitary administrators who cooperated with the police to embark on epidemic prevention, quarantine, vaccination, and disseminating public health information. In terms of local sanitary administration, P. H. Physicians had to work in an extensive area, and submit the routine report, the Public Health Physician Reports, to Taiwan Sōtokufu. In this article, I will first analyze the structure and nature of the Public Health Physician Reports to discuss its position and value in historiography. Secondly, I will use this material to discuss further on the subject of sanitation, the pervasion of vaccination and the epidemic of the plague, in the early stage of Japanese administration, so to shed light on the measures taken by the Taiwan Sōtokufu to prevent and control epidemics. Besides, this article will also talk about the positions and assignments in epidemic prevention, as well as the reaction of Taiwanese society to these policies of Taiwan Sōtokufu. |
