Special Summer Issue, 2020: Pandemics in Historical Perspective
By Jeanne E. Grant, Chief Editor
This is a special summer 2020 issue of the journal called, Pandemics in Historical Perspective. Every Friday, or nearly every Friday, through mid-June another article will be published. We invite readers to comment or to ask questions of the authors. Check back each week to see the next article and to see how the conversation has evolved.
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Pandemics, Past and Present: Influenza, COVID-19, Military Hospital Ships in Japan
By Sumiko Otsubo, Metropolitan State University
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© 2020 The Middle Ground Journal (ISSN: 2155-1103) Number 19, Summer 2020
Abstract: During the Siberian Intervention, the Japanese Army decided not to adopt hospital ships (病院船) but to rely on patient ships (患者船) when transporting 13,800 troops back to Japan and when the fall wave of the 1918 Influenza Pandemic was at its worst. Is it a valuable lesson for the current hospital ship legislative debate in Japan?
Keywords: pandemic パンデミック, Influenzaインフルエンザ, COVID-19新型コロナウイルス, Japan日本, military hospital ships軍用病院船, Siberian Interventionシベリア出兵
About the Author: Sumiko Otsubo is the Chair of the Ethnic, Gender, Historical, and Philosophical Studies Department at Metropolitan State University. Dr. Otsubo was selected as a 2025 Outstanding Educator by the Minnesota State Board of Trustees as part of the 2025 Board of Trustees Awards for Excellence. Dr. Otsubo received a Ph.D. from Ohio State University.
Edited by Birgit Schneider and Jeanne E. Grant
The Viral Game: The Global Football Community’s Response to Epidemics and Pandemics in the Twenty-First Century
By Patrick H. Salkeld, Independent Scholar
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© 2020 The Middle Ground Journal (ISSN: 2155-1103) Number 19, Summer 2020
Abstract: The twenty-first century has seen health crises related to SARS, Swine Flu, Ebola, Zika, and COVID-19. Nations cooperated with supranational groups when deciding what to do with football operations in these crises except during the COVID-19 pandemic when the “Ostrich Alliance” viewed it as interference with their sovereignty.
Keywords: pandemics, football (soccer), SARS, COVID-19, Ebola, FIFA World Cup, Zika, 2016 Rio Olympics, Swine Flu, 2015 African Cup of Nations
About the author: Patrick H. Salkeld is an independent scholar.
Edited by Birgit Schneider; special thanks to the anonymous peer reviewers.
Pedagogical and Historical Resources for the Pandemic
By Sarah Pesola, Chief Intern, undergraduate at Metropolitan State University
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© 2020 The Middle Ground Journal (ISSN: 2155-1103) Number 19, Summer 2020
About the Author: Sarah Pesola is the Chief Intern of the Middle Ground Journal and and an undergraduate student at Metropolitan State University.
Edited by Birgit Schneider and Jeanne E. Grant
Ideology and Disease: Cholera, Policy and Identity during the Sino-Japanese War
By Roberto Padilla, The University of Toledo History
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© 2020 The Middle Ground Journal (ISSN: 2155-1103) Number 19, Summer 2020
Abstract: During the Sino-Japanese War the Japanese army medical bureau employed medical protocols based largely on their ideological import. The result was a failed system of testing that prevented the early identification of a cholera epidemic that swept through the warzone. Near the end of the conflict the epidemic also spread to Japan.
Keywords: cholera, “Asiatic cholera,” Meiji Era, ideology, reform, Germ Theory, epidemic, Catarrh, quarantine, medical knowledge, disease and military
About the Author: Roberto Padilla II is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Toledo. Dr. Toledo received his doctorate from The Ohio State University in 2009, with a specialization in Modern East Asia. His dissertation, titled: "Science, Nurses, Physicians and Disease: The Role of Medicine in the Construction of a Modern Japanese Identity, 1868-1912," examines the way physicians of Western medicine in late nineteenth century Japan used medicine as a tool to assert a modern identity, while also drawing distinctions between Japanese and their nearby Asian neighbors. Padilla’s current research interests center on how nineteenth century Japanese medical practitioners engaged in experiments using human subjects and created disease categories related to beriberi and cholera to “Orientalize” Chinese and Koreans. Padilla’s research has received generous support from the US Department of Education in the form of Foreign Area Language Study Grants and a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Grant. He regularly spends his summers in Tokyo, Japan at Juntendo Medical University where he has a standing appointment as a Visiting Researcher. Padilla’s teaching interests include Chinese and Japanese history, as well as courses in the history of medicine and world and military history.
Edited by Birgit Schneider
“A Good Winter Rain Will Put Everything Right”: The British Government in India’s Response to the 1918 Influenza Pandemic and Famine
By Maura Chhun, Metropolitan State University
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© 2020 The Middle Ground Journal (ISSN: 2155-1103) Number 19, Summer 2020
Abstract: The 1918 Influenza Pandemic killed over twelve million Indians while a concurrent famine drove up the cost of basic necessities. The British government framed the pandemic as a complicating factor in their otherwise successful management of the famine, but more accurately the famine was a contributing factor to the pandemic’s death toll. Key words: 1918 Influenza Pandemic, Spanish Flu, British India, colonialism, famine, British Empire.
Keywords: 1918 Influenza Pandemic, Spanish Flu, British India, colonialism, famine, British Empire
About the Author: Kevin Mitchell Mercer is an Adjunct Professor of History at the University of Central Florida. Dr. Mercer holds an M.A. in History from the University of Central Florida.
Edited by Birgit Schneider and Justin Quinn Olmstead
Artifacts, Virality, and Connection: Social Media and Teaching in the Age of COVID-19
By Kevin Mitchell Mercer, M.A., Adjunct Professor of History, University of Central Florida
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© 2020 The Middle Ground Journal (ISSN: 2155-1103) Number 19, Summer 2020
Abstract: A history adjunct professor’s assignment allows students to understand that historic moments can be can be both extremely personal and globally shared and makes global connections for educators.
Keywords: pandemic, COVID-19, history teaching, historical artifacts, social media
About the Author: Kevin Mitchell Mercer is an Adjunct Professor of History at the University of Central Florida. Dr. Mercer holds an M.A. in History from the University of Central Florida.
Edited by Birgit Schneider and Justin Quinn Olmstead