Abstract

This article examines the relationship between medical science and the population problem (ingu munje) in colonial Korea. In the Autumn 2022 issue of the Korea Journal, historian John DiMoia proposed that the genealogy of population research and discourse in Korea be reconceptualized. While most research on population and fertility studies has focused on family planning (FP) and related subjects in the postwar and Cold War eras, DiMoia suggests that we observe the scientific study of these issues and related policies on the Korean Peninsula over a much longer interval, arguing that concerns about the population and population studies date back to the mobilization period of the late 1930s. He further demonstrates the involvement and role of medical scientists and demographers in FP population implementations. In response to DiMoia’s proposal, this study explores the origins of discourses and studies on population, beginning as early as the protectorate years (1905–1910) and the 1910s under Japan’s colonial rule (1910–1945). It focuses on population research by two medical scientists: the military physician Sato Tsunemaru and Kudō Takeki, an obstetrician-gynecologist. By scrutinizing the development of population discourses in early 20th-century Korea, this article sheds light on the colonial trajectory of the population problem and its management.