Choleric spaces: Producing spaces for cholera patients during the 1877 cholera epidemic in Japan
This thesis investigates the production of space during the cholera epidemic of 1877 in Japan. Called “choleric spaces” in this thesis, they are separated into two co-constituting types: material and discursive. The material spaces are demonstrated by government-produced quarantine hospitals and government-mandated home isolation. The discursive spaces are represented in this thesis by discourse in contemporary newspapers that influenced general understanding of cholera, treatment of the disease, and the policies enacted by the government to curb the spread of the disease. This thesis argues that these spaces represented new medicalized spaces in which patients with cholera were supposed to be located until they were either cured or died and in which information regarding cholera was disseminated. These medicalized spaces demonstrate a rupture with earlier spaces produced in relation to cholera and other diseases since they are based on modern understandings of the disease, as opposed to being socially, religiously, or morally biased.
Cholera, epidemic, quarantine hospitals, isolation, space, hygiene, Meiji, 1877, newspaper
University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
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University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign