Japan's War on Myopia, 1931-1945

• In Event: War and Medical Practice: Transformations and Legacies

Abstract

When the thirty-member delegation of the Hitler Youth visited Japan in 1938, many were quick to notice that none of the young men wore spectacles or seemed to suffer from poor vision. Many Japanese ophthalmologists noted that it was “in stark contrast to Japan”, where myopia was a major issue among young people, including army officers. They insisted that Japan had to take the myopia problem seriously, because otherwise “how could they win wars when there were so many myopic officers in the army”. In 1938, the Federation of the Eye (shiryoku hoken renmei) was founded with the mission to promote myopia research and raise awareness about the importance of good eyesight. Promoting good vision itself was not new; the Ministry of Education had emphasized its importance for the “development of the country” since the 1910s. However, after the Manchurian Incident in 1931 myopia came to be recognized as an eye condition, which could have a negative impact on Japan’s military ambitions.
This paper aims to describe how Japanese ophthalmologists enthusiastically cooperated with the military during the Fifteen Years War (1931-1945), trying to eradicate myopia. Their efforts included implementing research on causes, cure, and prevention of myopia, organizing awareness campaigns, public lectures, exhibitions, etc. This paper will especially focus on the awareness campaigns, as well as it will raise several question on how we should address this kind of cooperation, which did not or almost did not include unethical experiments on humans.

Author

• Astghik Hovhannisyan, Hitotsubashi University