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Bodies and Structures 2.0: Deep-Mapping Modern East Asian History

Flyer advertising vaccination against smallpox

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Explore a woodblock print from 1856.
Scroll down for questions to guide your exploration of the flyer.

To view the flyer in detail and read the annotations, hover over the image. Each annotation consists of a blue part (an English translation; or [in brackets] an English-language explanation) and a black part (a transcription of the text). To view the flyer without annotations, click on SOURCE FILE.

Note for the specialist reader: The furigana in the transcriptions of the text boxes on the upper left and lower right refer to glosses printed on the flyer itself. The furigana in most of the other transcriptions were added by me.
Describe the images on the flyer. What kinds of scenes and processes are being displayed in the lower left and upper right quadrants?

How does the flyer represent parents and children? What can you conclude from their conversations about contemporary assumptions about people's attitudes toward vaccinations? How does the flyer try to persuade them?

What does the flyer make of the fact that vaccinations were a technology imported from abroad?

Identify as many references to religion as you can find on this flyer. What might the authors have intended by connecting vaccination to these various religious traditions?

Look at the language and writing style. What can you conclude from these about the intended audience of the flyer?
The Spatio-Temporality of Virus and Vaccine One of the most memorable chapters in the history of smallpox vaccination in Japan is the story of the vaccine's importation. In the decades before 1849, Japanese and Dutch physicians arranged for the vaccine to be sent from Batavia in the Dutch East Indies or from China on several occasions, but failed each time because the virus did not survive the long sea journey through tropical climates. In 1849, Japanese physicians finally succeeded at reconstituting the vaccine from scabs brought to Nagasaki on a Dutch ship and immunized a local child. Within Japan, the vaccine could be moved more easily through arm-to-arm transmission. But distribution still hinged on the presence of a network of physicians who were willing to share the vaccine rather than monopolize it as a potentially lucrative source of income.

Click HERE to explore the woodblock-printed flyer below. You can hover over the image to read transcriptions and translations of the various text segments. You will also find questions to guide you.

The tale of the importation and spread of the vaccine has already received much attention [Jannetta]. But there is another, equally important aspect to the story of the vaccine that has only begun to be told: its perpetuation over time. Because of the spatial and temporal limitations of the biological properties of the cowpox vaccine, physicians faced major hurdles in trying to keep it in circulation. As Yanagisawa Fumiko has noted, the vaccination rate in Fukui prefecture (which roughly overlaps with Echizen province) only crossed the eighty-percent mark in the second half of the 1880s [Yanagisawa, 2018, p. 59]. This figure suggests that even under the centralized structure of the Meiji state with its emphasis on public health, the goal of full coverage was not easy to attain.