In A Medicated Empire: The Pharmaceutical Industry in Modern Japan, Timothy M. Yang uses Hoshi Pharmaceuticals as a case study to reveal fascinating aspects of the intertwined histories of medicine, capitalism, and empire in modern Japan. Yang's exciting and innovative text looks at how Hoshi Pharmaceuticals and the consumer medicine industry created a disciplined citizenry capable of monitoring its own health through over-the-counter drugs. The production of a populace that could manage its own health gave individuals the impression of autonomy, even as it further enmeshed them in the state's promotion of capitalist development. In this fashion, a focus on Hoshi allows Yang to connect histories of biopolitics and social control with histories of consumption and capitalism.

The book is very readable. It is structured around important moments in Hoshi's history, laid out in a roughly chronological fashion. The first section (chapters 1 and 2) highlights the development of Hoshi in relation to Meiji-period nation building. The second section (chapters 3 and 4) examines marketing and sales distributions networks. The third section (chapters 5 and 6) discusses empire, focusing on Hoshi's monopoly on opium sales in Japan, which initially brought tremendous profit but ultimately led to Hoshi's downfall. The final section (chapters 7 and 8) analyzes the need to marshal medical resources during the wartime period.

While the research is mainly focused on Hoshi Pharmaceuticals, Yang uses this case study to explore larger themes related to the history of capitalism in modern Japan and modern societies. As Yang demonstrates, there was nothing special about the patent medicines that provided the basis for Hoshi's early success. “Patent” here differs from contemporary connections to intellectual property. Instead, this term referred to compounds that allowed local people to treat their own ailments. Largely composed of the same compounds as other patent medicines, Hoshi's succeeded because of its distribution networks and its deft marketing strategies. Hoshi presented its compounds as products of rigorous laboratory testing that would improve the efficacy of patent medicines. Moreover, in Hoshi's self-promotion, the pursuit of profit became rearticulated as a humanitarian project under the slogan “Kindness First” (chapter 2). Based on lessons learned during time spent in the United States, Hoshi also established franchises, where franchisees became “medical missionaries” (chapter 4) that promoted Hoshi's products and its civilizing mission. As a result of Hoshi's advertising campaigns, “Medicines Are Hoshi,” its other main catchphrase, became widely known throughout society. Hoshi, in other words, recognized the power of branding and the creation of a base of loyal customers. As Yang shows, the values of self-discipline and self-medication that Hoshi promoted allowed it to amass great profits and contributed to the biopolitical project of Meiji-period nation building.

Alongside recent works such as Sayaka Chatani's Nation-Empire,Footnote ¹ Yang's study deftly weaves together the history of developments in metropolitan Japan with the history of imperial expansion. As Yang stresses, the prewar history of metropolitan Japan cannot be divorced from those of its imperial possessions. While Hoshi was a major domestic company, some of its success came from producing morphine for Japanese imperial troops, and it later unsuccessfully attempted to transform itself into a major producer of chinchona bark (an essential ingredient in quinine) in colonial Taiwan. In colonial discourse, biomedicine became a material manifestation of the state's promise of civilizational advancement for colonized peoples. The discussion of indigenous Taiwanese at the end of chapter 7 nicely highlights the hypocrisy inherent in Hoshi's slogan “Kindness First,” as well as Japanese colonial bureaucrats’ vision of racial harmony and civilizational uplift. Further, Hoshi capitalized on the need for antimalarial medicines during Japan's campaigns in Southeast Asia during the Asia-Pacific War. Yang productively analyzes advertising campaigns from the total war period to show how consumption and pleasure could be deployed to support wartime mobilization and Hoshi's sales simultaneously. In Yang's sophisticated presentation, the history of Hoshi Pharmaceuticals reveals the history of empire embedded in Hoshi's commercial expansion.

Yang's text provides fascinating insight into the marketing and sales strategies that Hoshi used to sell its vision of hygienic modernity. Nevertheless, as Yang notes, this project relies heavily on Hoshi's own archive. At times, I hoped that we might encounter the voices of the franchisees or customers who either sold or purchased Hoshi's products. It is unlikely that such records exist, although I find myself somewhat surprised that an organization as relentlessly self-promoting as Hoshi would not include stories of franchisees or customers in the newspaper that it produced. Moreover, while Yang nicely analyzes the importance of “the fantasy of modern life” (p. 91) in Hoshi's sales campaigns, further engagement with affect could have been useful. As Lynn Thomas recently demonstrated in her history of skin-whitening products in South Africa, the consumption of goods meant to “improve” one's body necessarily relates to affective attachments.Footnote ² Finally, while Yang very skillfully demonstrates the importance of Hoshi and its medicines for creating a culture of independent bodily regulation and time discipline necessary for capitalist social relations, I wondered whether Yang might have pushed his critique of capitalism further. As various scholars have demonstrated, capitalism produces unevenness even as capitalists argue that they ultimately raise the standard of living for all. While Yang shows the facile nature of “Kindness First” when it came to Hoshi, it would be interesting if he had extended this critique of “Kindness First” to a more sustained examination of the workings of capitalism itself.

These quibbles aside, A Medicated Empire is an important work that will be of great interest to scholars interested in the history of modern Japan and its empire as well as the history of medicine and drugs. I can imagine assigning this in graduate and upper-division undergraduate courses focused on modern Japan, empire, consumer capitalism, or medicine.