While the recent outbreak of dengue fever in southern Taiwan might seem completely unrelated to history or resistance against Japanese colonialism at the end of the 19th century, mosquitoes were the greatest cause of Japanese casualties during the Japanese colonial period.
According to an exclusive report in the Taiwan People News, while Japanese forces quelled a rebellion by local Han Chinese in Taiwan in 1895, they suffered many losses due to malaria and dengue fever.
The ceding of Taiwan under the Shimonoseki Treaty after devastating losses in the first Sino-Japanese War in 1894 was rejected by local gentry led by Chiu Feng-chia (丘逢甲), the Qing governor-general of Taiwan, Tang Ching-sung (唐景崧), and retired Black Flag Army commander Liu Yung-fu (劉永福), who proclaimed the formation of the Republic of Formosa in Taipei on May 23, 1895, which resulted in Japan dispatching troops to the island.
Despite records showing that the poorly equipped local military and militia suffered total losses of 14,000, while the Japanese suffered 4,806 losses, Japanese deaths related directly to battle accounted for only 164, the report said.
The report said that the other 4,642 died from malaria. An additional 26,094 came down with malaria, but survived. Prince Kitashirakawa Yoshihisa, who was in charge of the first division of the Imperial Japanese Army during the assault, also contracted malaria and died outside Tainan.
However, there were rumors that the prince had been killed by Taiwanese guerrillas, the report said.
Diseases carried by mosquitoes remained a persistent problem during the early phase of the Japanese colonial period, causing all Japanese governors-general appointed to Taiwan to prioritize treatment of malaria, the report said.
Due to the lack of medical knowledge concerning malaria at the time, the Japanese could only take preventive measures against what they called the “Taiwan fever,” the report said, adding that it was not until several years later, after joint efforts by Great Britain and Italy bore fruit in the treatment of malaria, that the Japanese colonial government finally had a solution.
Malaria gradually killed fewer people in Taiwan and was only the 10th-biggest cause of death by 1941, the report said.
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