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The Little Ice Age and the Change of the Diseases in Joseon Dynasty

This article examined the change of diseases in the little ice age of Joseon Dynasty. From the late 16th to the 17th century, the climate of Joseon became colder and longer than before, like Europe and China. When average temperature is decreased, the stress of living things is increased. This makes plant growth and animal immunity weakening, too. According to the theory of Little Ice Age, European peasants during the 1300 to 1850 suffered famines, hypothermia etc.. In the late 17th century, agriculture had dropped off dramatically. Previous researches of Joseon s little ice age pointed out that these also happened in Joseon. According to former researches, the abnormal weather of Joseon brought the epidemics and its outbreaks of 1511~1560, 1641~1740, and 1781~1850 during the Little Ice Age. I made comparisons between two medical books, specifically Gukuep-bang(救急方, First Aid Prescriptions) published in 1466, and Eon-hae Gukuep-bang(諺解救急方, Translated into Korean for First Aid Prescriptions) published in 1608. Two books were written by court physicians and published by government. It reveals what kind of diseases were important in daily life. Eon-hae Gukuep-bang was published in the middle of ice age, and it had more diseases, specifically epidemics such as mumps, syphilis, leprosy and small pox. The first book for scarlet fever was written by Heo Jun, the author of Eon-hae Gukuep-bang and Dongi-Bogam. In the 18th century, several medical books were published. More epidemics brought the development of medicine in Joseon. Heo Jun suggested how to avoid the death from starvation in Eon-hae Gukuep-bang. It was the first time to deal with starvation in Josoen s medical books. People got suffered from the outbreaks of scarlet fever, measles, small pox and mumps. The outbreaks of epidemic seemed like to be related with Japanese war. However the colder weather did a role to spread winter s epidemic in Joseon.