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Created page with " Malaria is a tropical disease which takes several forms, caused by different varieties of ''Plasmodium'' parasites, often transmitted by mosquitoes. Though very much diminish..."
Malaria is a tropical disease which takes several forms, caused by different varieties of ''Plasmodium'' parasites, often transmitted by mosquitoes. Though very much diminished today, as late as [[1900]], people as far north as the Kansai region (i.e. [[Kyoto]]/[[Osaka]]) suffered from malaria; in some areas to the south, such as [[Okinawa prefecture]], malaria was prevalent even as late as the 1960s.
Ailments described as ''okori'' 瘧, ''warawayami'' 和良波夜美, and ''eyami'' 衣夜美 in texts such as the ''[[Genji monogatari]]'', ''[[Ujishui monogatari|Ujishûi monogatari]]'', and ''[[Azuma kagami]]'' have been identified by scholars as describing, or referring to, malaria.
==In the Ryukyu Islands==
While the variety of the disease known as "tropical malaria" was likely introduced into the [[Miyako Islands|Miyako]] and [[Yaeyama Islands]] from the south, a variety known as "indigenous" malaria is believed to have been introduced to [[Okinawa Island|Okinawa]] in the 12th-14th century by immigrants from Korea and Japan.
Malaria was a significant problem for the Japanese in the [[Ryukyu Islands]] and farther south in the [[Meiji period]] and into the 20th century. More than five hundred members of the [[1874]] [[Taiwan Expedition]] are believed to have died of malaria.<ref>Andrew Gordon, ''A Modern History of Japan'', Oxford University Press (2013), 74.</ref> It was, of course, a problem for the locals as well, and many on Okinawa suffered from malaria alongside starvation and other problems as a significant number of people fled central and southern Okinawa to the densely forested [[Yanbaru]] region in the north of the island during the 1945 Battle of Okinawa.<ref>''Okinawa ken heiwa kinen shiryôkan sôgô annai'' 沖縄県平和祈念資料館総合案内 ("General Catalog of Okinawa Peace Memorial Museum"), Nanjô, Okinawa: Okinawa Peace Memorial Museum (2004), 52-53.</ref>
Deforestation in Japan and the Ryukyu Islands in concert with urbanization and other aspects of modernity has brought a directly proportional drop in cases of malaria.
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==References==
*Gregory Smits, ''Early Ryukyuan History: A New Model'', Univ. of Hawaii Press (2024), 151-152.
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[[Category:Ryukyu]]