Good Foods and Bad Foods: The 1862 Measles Epidemic and Diet in Edo

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Abstract

Texts and artworks composed in the context of Japan's measles epidemic in 1862 provided the public with recommendations about foods that were beneficial or detrimental for the prevention and treatment of measles. These texts and artworks constitute important historical sources essential for understanding how diets changed during the epidemic and for identifying foodstuffs that were commonly eaten by ordinary Japanese people prior to the epidemic.

Author Biography

James Morris, University of Tsukuba, Japan

James Harry Morris, MTheol, PhD, FRAS, is an assistant professor at the University of Tsukuba (Japan). He researches the history of Christianity in East Asia, Christian-Muslim relations, and new religious movements. At present, he is working on a two-year research project exploring the history of Christian-Muslim relations in China and Japan, funded by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, as well as a project on Japanese environmental theologies funded by the Mining History Association.

Ryūfū kyōku.

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Published

2023-03-08

Issue

2022

Section

Spring

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Copyright (c) 2022 James Morris

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.