Epidemics and Mortality in Early Modern Japan

Ann Jannetta suggests that Japan''s geography and isolation from major world trade routes provided a cordon sanitaire that prevented the worst diseases of the early modern world from penetrating the country before the mid-nineteenth century. Her argument is based on the medical literature on epidemic diseases, on previously unknown evidence in Buddhist temple registers, and on rich documentary evidence from contemporary observers in Japan.

Originally published in 1987.

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