Seattle University Collaborative Projects - International Academy of ...

Alternative Medicine for Mental Patients: The Case of GanryujiAi Miura, Baika Women’s University (a-miura@baika.ac.jp)Alternative medicine for mental patients was in use in many parts of Japan even after the mentalpatient custody law was enacted in 1900. This law made confinement of mental patients possiblein their family homes and some people believed alternative medicine to be more effective thanmental hospitals. In the Ganryuji placed in Tamba City, Hyogo Prefecture, alternative medicaltreatment was being used ("water treatment using the waterfall" and "prayer based onBuddhism") at the beginning of the 20th century. But Japan in the early 20th century wasprogressing inevitably toward war due to its social and international situation, and alternativemedicine became unstable while confinement of mental patients was strengthened. This led tothe establishment of Kora Mental Hospital, situated near Ganryuji, in 1937. It is notable that thishospital continued to use alternative medicine. Alternative medical treatments continued in thehospital until at least 1940. Traditionally, modern western psychiatry had been in conflict withalternative medicine. But this presentation will illustrate the case of Ganryuji and discuss howalternative medicine and western psychiatry established a complementary relationship to oneanother there.73. HistoryNational Socialist Psychiatry in the German South-West: InternationalInvolvement of Agents and International Perspectives on Nazi GermanyThomas Müller, University of Ulm (th.mueller@zfp-zentrum.de)This presentation focuses on the methods, objects and projected outcome of a research project inthe making. Results of pre-studies and framing investigative analyses will also be presented. Theaim of this project, conducted by a larger group of researchers under the presenter’s guidance, isto learn more about the regional specificity and history of what have come to be named “nationalsocialist psychiatry”, “euthanasia” and the relation to the “Holocaust”, i.e. the Shoah. The regionunder study is Wuerttemberg, in the SouthWest of the German Reich, a former Kingdom (until1918) and today a part of the federal state of Baden-Wuerttemberg. Prerequisites, major stepsand consequences of the German history of psychiatry during National Socialism in this regionare under scrutiny and seen through the scope of “centre and periphery”. Embedded in a largerframework of academic contributions on the matter by international scholars, this research aimsto study both common ground and diverging aspects of the history of South Western psychiatryin national comparison as well to detect international activities of historical agents.180