Table of Contents

Introduction: Medicine, Power, and the Rhetoric of Empire
The Geography of Affliction: Beriberi in Edo and Tokyo
Putting the Laboratory at the Center
Beriberi: Disease of Imperial Culture
Empire and the Making of a National Disease
The Science of Vitamins and the Construction of Ignorance
The Rice Germ Debate: Total Mobilization and the Science of Vitamins in the 1930s

Reviews

Beriberi in Modern Japan is the first comprehensive historical monograph that focuses solely on beriberi in Japan in the English language. It makes a significant contribution to Japanese history, the history of imperialism, and the history of medicine. It is a conceptually sophisticated work that grapples with a complex topic in an intelligent and convincing manner.
*JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE AND ALLIED SCIENCES*

Bay is to be commended for bringing this important episode in Japanese medical history to an English-reading audience. This book will surely find a readership both within and outside Japanese studies amid growing interest in both food culture and medical history, and it should provoke lively conversations about the methods and aims of both these fields.
*MONUMENTA NIPPONICA*

Beriberi in Modern Japan is indeed an inspiring and well-organised monograph. The author has done an excellent job linking the aetiological argument with Japanese state-building in the modern period.
*MEDICAL HISTORY*