[A comparative study on Inoculation in China and Japan].

There are two ways of planting smallpox. One is inoculation and the other is vaccination. Chinese inoculation was invented in China and was in use in the country up to the mid-20 th century. Inoculation in Japan was brought from China in 1744, and it produced fairly good results until the mid-19th century, when vaccination was introduced to the country and spread rapidly. Inoculation then was forgotten almost completed, despite the satisfactory result it had produced. Undoubtedly, however, inoculation affected the rapid spread of vaccination in Japan. Looking back on the historical process of inoculation, both in China and Japan, I looked into the difference in the way inoculation has been evaluated in the two countries. There are two big differences; one technical and the other methodological. First there is a difference in the way the poison was diluted, and in the choice of the sprout, which led to the difference in effectiveness and safety of inoculation. Secondly, the government supported inoculation and spread it actively in China. In Japan, on the contrary, each domain (han) promoted vaccination, influenced by the trend of the time to accept Western culture positively.