|
KMID : 0857920150180020105
|
|
Yonsei Journal of Medical History
2015 Volume.18 No. 2 p.105 ~ p.124
|
|
|
Why the Manchurian Plague Did Not Cross the Yallu River in the Early 20th Century
|
|
Lee Hyun-Sook
Yeo In-Sok
|
|
|
Abstract
|
|
|
|
This paper aims to raise the question and elucidate the reason why the Manchurian plague did not cross the Yallu River, even though smallpox and cholera were prevalent in the early twentieth century during the Japanese annexation period despite supposedly modern preventive measures against epidemics. Considering the well-known rate of infection from this disease, it is noteworthy that Korea, lying adjacent to Manchuria, was virtually exempt from the pneumonic plague. The preventive measures against the plague carried out by the Japanese authorities in their annexed land were often mentioned as evidence of the modernization of the colonized country. But another theory claimed that their preventive measures were not taken properly in reality; rather, some critics regarded the fact that Chinese coolies, the prime source of the plague, did not pass through Korea on their way home for Lunar New Year`s Day as the main reason why Korea was exempt from the plague. But these two theories were not enough to explain the enigma. It should be noted that during the fourteenth century, when Mongol troops spread the bubonic plague to China and Europe, there was no record of the plague breaking out in Korea, which was ruled by the Mongols at the time. Manchuria is one of the regions where plague bacilli are ever present, and considering that ancient Korea ruled over Manchuria for several thousand years, it could be that Koreans developed an inherited immunity against the plague.
|
|
|
KEYWORD
|
|
|
Pneumonic plague, Manchuria, the early 20th century, Korea, Japanese colonial administration
|
|
|
FullTexts / Linksout information
|
|
|
|
|
|
Listed journal information
|
|
|
|
|