Nation from the Bottom Up: Environmental Hygiene and Disease Prevention in Twentieth Century Japan

Alexander Bay , Associate Professor, Department of History, Chapman University

This talk is based on a chapter from Nation from the Bottom Up: Environmental Hygiene and Disease Prevention in Twentieth Century Japan. It examines the history of fecal-oral route and parasite-diseases, and the technology of toilets and waste-management, asking the larger question of how Japan managed, treated and disposed of human effluent across the twentieth century. This study reveals the relationship between humans, their waste, disease, and the environment and gives a historical understanding of the challenges of, as well as the spectrum of possible answers for, enduring public health questions of how best and hygienically to dispose of human waste.