This paper discusses the emergence of Filipino physicians in the Spanish Philippines, focusing on Manila in the late 19th century. The purpose is to consider the historical significance of the medical profession for Filipino society.

The native wealthy people emerged in the 19th century as further an increased quantity of the agricultural products was exported to the world market. They formed an educated wealthy class called Ilustrados which led to the Propaganda Movement, being the basis of the Philippine Revolution. Filipino physicians also were among them and, simultaneously, occupied a part of the medical officers such as Médico Titular and Médico Municipal in the late 19th century.

In the late 19th century, the various governmental organs involved in health care were administratively consolidated, subsuming the Central Committee of Vaccine, the Office of Marine Quarantine and the Médicos Titulares. At the same time, both medicine and welfare in governmental services were connected in the Médicos Municipales by whom free medical services were provided for the poor, in Manila and its suburbs. Such state medicine was launched under the Spanish empire which had been interdependent with the Catholic Church.

The Spanish was given priority in the employment of those medical officers. However, Filipino physicians who obtained the medical licenses from the University of Santo Tomas increased up to the 1890s. Public Pharmacists and vaccinators were also taught at the University of Santo Tomas. On the other hand, through the cholera epidemics in the 1880s and the Philippine Revolution in 1896, some Spanish physicians asked to resign from their own posts and return to Spain. The employment of Spanish and Filipino physicians largely oscillated in the 1890s.

Those physicians dealt with infectious diseases, based on practical use of miasma theory and bacteriology. Regarding cholera, these physicians stressed both prevention and disinfection. As a method of medical treatment, the purgative was, characteristically, administered to cholera patients in cases of abdominal pain and diarrhea. In general, their medical practices were mainly given at patients’ homes, with a treatment of native medicinal plants. Such native medicine hadn’t been separated from Spanish imperial medicine. But, at that time, all Filipino physicians didn’t necessarily follow the medicine promoted by the Spanish empire. For example, one Filipino physician thought that the Spanish medical dignitary not only fell behind western medical science of those days, but also misunderstood native medicine. On the other hand, this physician admired Filipinos’ own medicine. Such critical views against Spanish imperial medicine were succeeded in American colonial times and confronted American medical officers.

This study examines how Cambodia’s history was rewritten during the period of the Khmer Republic (1970－75), after a coup d’état led to a transition from a monarchical to a republican form of government, and the war against Norodom Sihanouk and the Khmer communists (Khmer Rouge) supported by North Vietnam intensified. A diffusion of historical discourses by the government was essential to uphold the fighting spirit and claim legitimacy for the new government.

During the first half of the Republican Period, new historical discourses and interpretations appeared in various media. War brought them to the forefront of attention: these works helped the Khmer nation to resist extinction. In government narratives, the Vietnamese were cast as the historical enemy of the Khmer. The government supported studies of the origin of the Khmer. In several media, including books on national history, intensified narratives of previous Vietnamese invasions aroused fears of Vietnamese conquest. The coup d’état against Sihanouk promoted a reconsideration of the role of the Khmer kings. Several history books focused on non-royal heroes, and the government honored the Buddhist monk Achary Haem Cheav, who resisted French colonialism. The government propagated a historical discourse, calling the idea of a king dictatorial and feudal. This discourse was echoed in the media, which also criticized the current government in the same terms, using the Sdech Kang narrative.

Official history textbooks and Troeng Ngea’s “Khmer History” which eventually became part of the canon of Khmer history, reflected official historical discourse, but not exactly. These works also demonstrated a sense of crisis in the possible extinction of the Khmer nation, however they did not introduce new heroes from history. The most typical change through these national histories concerned the role of monarchy in Khmer history in respect of independency. The Kings in the Angkor period were not considered as feudal and dictatorial, but in respect of interferences by neighboring countries the Kings in post-Angkor period were considered as feudal and dictatorial.

This essay gives an overview of major trends in the research of Southeast Asian history in Japan since 2006 when the Japan Society for Southeast Asian History changed its name to the Japan Society for Southeast Asian Studies. Surveying those books concerning Southeast Asian history in a broad sense which were published during the research period, it arranges them into three sections. The first section includes books on global history and border history with special attention to maritime and mountainous areas in the region. The second section deals with books on modernity which see continuities between cultural politics and governing practices under colonialism on one hand, and the efforts of nation-state-making after the Asia-Pacific War on the other hand. The third section shows that historians have contributed to society in various ways from writing textbooks for Japanese readers to narrating polyphonic histories through talking to people otherwise whose memories might not be recorded.

Philippine political studies have transformed after a heated debate on orientalism in its research tradition. In this evolving process, they have gradually abandoned the dominant frameworks such as weak states, patron-client relations, and/or rent seeking to characterize Philippine politics and economy in general. First, they have adapted various types of institutionalism to study them as only particular parts of Philippine politics and economy. Second, other scholars have expanded their eye sights to capture dynamic nature of Philippine politics shaped by the left movement or non-mobilized poor people whose agencies have been neglected. Third, there is a group of scholars who study the role of agency to shed new light on the Philippine state formation or state building. Fourth, those who have problematized nationalism in research methods advocate ethno-history or put the Philippines in broader regional contexts. The research community has also witnessed development of research environment where Filipino researchers and researchers from abroad cooperate with each other in particular research project, fellowship, and international workshops which often have multi-disciplinary nature. By mingling with scholars with different academic discipline and working environment, Philippine studies have evolved to appreciate wider audience both in the Philippines and abroad.