Nursing by Buddhist during Meiji Japan was stimulated by the visiting nursing program conducted by nurses connected with the Kyoto Training School for Nurses. Why were Buddhist priests attracted to the visiting nursing. what did they try to adopt and what kind of nursing activities did they try to organize? As the first step to answer these questions. in this paper I considered the specialty. the sociality. and the nursing spirit of the home nursing and district nursing provided by the Kyoto Training School for Nurses. Moreover. through using material concerning the Kyoto Nursing Association by the graduates from the Kyoto Training School for Nurses. I investigated the visiting nursing activities in modern Kyoto. The nursing activities noted above played a role going beyond the usual framework of medical treatment. The Kyoto Training School for Nurses was founded to promote westernization and charity. Nursing care was provided for the sick and child-rearing mothers. both in the hospitals and in their own homes. by nurses with professional knowledge and skills and possessing professional ethics. Not only did they care for the sick directly in cooperation with physicians. but they also planned and practiced care including the lives of the patients and their families. At times. they also helped spread modern notions of hygiene and medical treatment among the people. Nursing. while constituting a modern profession. was at the same time practiced the charity based on Christianity having the propagation of Christianity as its mission. Nursing supported by faith was practiced autonomously. and at times also offered the spiritual healing. Buddhist works assumed modernity by adopting this nursing method and became the embodiment of Buddhist compassion by Buddhists. These practices were training for Buddhists. Modern nursing became a part of Buddhist practice. On the other hand, the Kyoto Nurse Society run by the graduates from the Kyoto Training School for Nurses created a curriculum based on western modern medicine following the educational system of the Kyoto Training School for Nurses, set forth guidelines for professional ethics, and trained nurses. Visiting nursing was treated professionally. The Kyoai Nurse Society emphasized spiritual nursing in addition to professional training. It is assumed that both nurse societies practiced nursing activity autonomously in cooperation with physicians. At the end of 19th century, the increase of the number of nurses in the social context led to its professional diversification. Even while the qualifications for the nursing profession remained unregulated, a variety of factors such as the expansion of hospital care, recurrence of epidemics, wars, the increase of practitioners, and medical progress, introduced the period of mass production of nurses. Nursing as profession began to assume a character that complemented the system directly and indirectly. In such a situation, the existence of nursing, originating in the Kyoto Training School for Nurses, which attracted people connected to Buddhism, provided the opportunity to consider the meaning and possibility of nursing for the sick, the meaning of healing and being healed, and the identity of nursing. |