The role of state medicine in modern Japan

Medical law education, which is more significant today than ever, was initiated with the establishment of the rule of law in modern Japan. However, many aspects of the actual situation remain unclear. We analyzed the original texts of Elements of Forensic Medicine (1891) by Kuniyoshi Katayama (1855–1931), the founder of forensic medicine in Japan, and other papers to elucidate the origins of medical law education. While studying in Germany and Austria, Kuniyoshi Katayama was convinced of the importance of the concept of Staatsarzneikunde (state medicine) and sought to realise it in a way that was suitable for the Japanese society. Katayama argued that state medicine is an indispensable field for the policy of increasing national prosperity and military power and that it had two main elements—public health and forensic medicine. The latter was a compulsory discipline for all doctors to protect the rights of the people. Katayama thought that forensic medicine as a legally applied medicine had a double structure: application in legislation and law enforcement. The former aimed to contribute to improving criminal justice by providing medical grounds that could not be judged by legal scholars alone. For the latter, Katayama established the training course modelled on the Practice-Oriented School of Public Health and Medicine in Germany. The course was designed for medicolegal experts and general physicians to cultivate legal awareness. German forensic medicine served as the foundation for the development of forensic medicine—including medical law—in Japan.