Abstract
The introduction discusses Michel Foucault’s theory used in this book. It argues there was a major shift, which Foucault would call an epistemic shift, in mid-eighteenth-century Japan in the field of medicine, where perceptions of the body and medical methods drastically changed. After the creation of a modern nation state in Japan in the latter half of the nineteenth century, modern bio-power proliferated in conjunction with the accumulation of medical and scientific knowledge about both individuals and the wider population, categorized by gender, race, nationality, age, and so on. Collaboration between the modern state and the medical profession led to the expansion of bio-power, which has often worked against the interests of many women.