Places women and gender at the centre of modern medical transformations in Korea. This book outlines the professionalization of medicine, nursing, and midwifery, tracing their evolution from new legal and institutional infrastructures in public health and education, and investigates women's experiences as health practitioners and patients.

Provides an invaluable analysis of late-Choson (1392-1897) thought, politics, and society to help readers understand the response of Confucians to Catholicism and of Korean Catholics to years of violent harassment. His analysis is informed by two remarkable documents expertly translated with the assistance of Franklin Rausch.