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When Korea’s first modern hospital opened in 1885, it was called the “House for Relieving the People” (Chejungwŏn 廣惠院). This was more than a translation; it hints a historical narrative linking politics and medicine. This study traces how the Confucian imperative to “relieve the people” (Chejungwŏn) was introduced from China to Chosŏn Korea and subsequently shaped royal responses to the devastating epidemics that swept Korea in seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Moving beyond a narrative of crisis management, it examines how epidemics, in addition to other natural disasters, became a political theatre for demonstrating benevolent governance (injǒng仁政). By analysing policies, institutions, medical texts, and rituals, this study explores a pre-modern Korean framework in which epidemics were interwoven with cosmic disorder and royal virtue, drawing comparisons with the modern discourse of public health.
