Demonic Affliction or Contagious Disease?: Changing Perceptions of Smallpox in the Late Edo Period

This article examines the ways in which smallpox epidemics were perceived in premodern Japan. It is a study of the ways of thinking that crystallized around the struggle to eradicate smallpox, and aims to clarify the formative elements of the now extinct cult of the smallpox deity. In this struggle...

Description complète

Enregistré dans:  
Détails bibliographiques
Auteur principal: Rotermund, Hartmut O. 1939- (Auteur)
Collaborateurs: Tyler, Royall 1936- (Traducteur)
Type de support: Électronique Article
Langue:Anglais
Vérifier la disponibilité: HBZ Gateway
Fernleihe:Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste
Publié: Nanzan Institute [2001]
Dans: Japanese journal of religious studies
Année: 2001, Volume: 28, Numéro: 3/4, Pages: 373-398
Sujets non-standardisés:B Epidemics
B Smallpox
B Deities
B Physicians
B Religious Studies
B Measles
B Smallpox vaccines
Accès en ligne: Volltext (kostenfrei)
Description
Résumé:This article examines the ways in which smallpox epidemics were perceived in premodern Japan. It is a study of the ways of thinking that crystallized around the struggle to eradicate smallpox, and aims to clarify the formative elements of the now extinct cult of the smallpox deity. In this struggle against smallpox, practices based in magical thinking and measures that were strikingly modern in nature existed side by side until the middle of the nineteenth century, when the practice of vaccination finally prevailed.
Contient:Enthalten in: Japanese journal of religious studies