Reconstructing Smallpox Outbreaks, Transmission Channels, and Curing Methods in the Early Modern Ryukyu Islands

After the advent of the Europeans in Asian waters, their traders and missionaries also arrived, above all on the main island of the archipelago, Okinawa. Travel, trade, diplomatic connections, and even migration were part and parcel of early modern Ryukyuan history. And with increasing ‘internationalisation’, contagious diseases were also imported from overseas. This chapter introduces outbreaks and treatment of smallpox epidemics in the Ryukyu Islands, with a preliminary reconstruction of the spread of the diseases and tentative transmission routes. Appendix 1: "Annotated translation of smallpox cases from Ryūkyū hakumon", in, Cao Cunxin 曹存心 resp. Cao Renbo 曹仁伯 (author), Gu Yongyuan, Jiang Yiping eds. Ryūkyū hakumon (Chin. Liuqiu baiwen 琉球百問 ). Taizhou: Jiangsu kexue jishu chubanshe, 1983; and Leshan xiansheng 樂山先生 [= Cao Renbo] (comp.), Liuqiu baiwen (1881; based on the 1859 original). Appendix 2: "Tentative Reconstruction of Smallpox Epidemics" Maps: These maps have been produced on the basis of available source entries and cannot claim to be complete and exhaustive. They provide a preliminary overview on outbreaks and the spread of smallpox epidemics in contemporary Kyushu and Ryukyu