The Construction of Folk Medicine in Modern Japan: Discourse and Practice1.11.2026 {en}

The Center for Integrated Japanese Studies (CIJS) of Tohoku University welcomes participation in a hybrid talk by Dr. Alexander Bay (Chapman University) at 14:00–16:30 JST on November 13, 2026 on the historical construction of „folk medicine/民間薬“ in modern Japan as the first event of its Multi-Life Humanities Seminar Series.

Is „folk medicine“ simply a passive product of „tradition,“ or is there more to the formation of its historical roots? This talk examines the discourse and practice of deploying medicinal plants for treatments in Japan’s early-modern and modern eras. While popular science writers define folk medicine as treatments for illness that have been administered by the masses and passed down among the people, this talk unpacks the constructed nature of folk medicine in Japan during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and argues that this “tradition” was a product of the 1920s, and that the earlier we go into the historical record, the more we realize that the roots of folk medicine are firmly planted in the Sino-centric world of Edo-period learned medicine. Following the talk will be a Q&A, including a discussion about writing plants and other nonhuman beings into the history of medicine and healthcare from a multispecies perspective while also going beyond the species-based taxonomy of biology in the classification of the various forms that „life“ can take in human experience, memory, and imagination.

For details of the talk, please see: https://cijs.oii.tohoku.ac.jp/en/news/detail—id-184.html

Registration for online or in-person participation (free): https://forms.gle/hTFBwKtA6Kfmbzs28

About the Speaker: Alexander Bay is a historian of public health, medicine and disease of modern Japan and the Chair of the Department of History at Chapman University. In addition to journal articles on waste management, disease prevention and parasites, among other topics, his monograph Beriberi in Modern Japan: The Making of a National Disease (University of Rochester Press, 2012) traces the interplay between scientific debates, public health and the building of the Japanese empire. Bay is currently working on a project about the history of folk medicine in Japan.

Further information at https://cijs.oii.tohoku.ac.jp/en/news/detail—id-184.html.

Source: Hybrid Talk: The Construction of Folk Medicine in Modern Japan: Discourse and Practice, H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences Online „CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.“