In 1934, there was a severe controversy between advocates of traditional medicine in Korea and a biomedicine-trained doctor. Through the debate, the advocates of Korean medicine attempted to “modernize” their field and to secure an independent status that would guarantee the institutionalization of Korean medicine.
Pursuing their independent standing, however, required the advocates to find a rationale that Korean medicine should be separated from Western medicine. They emphasized that there existed fundamental differences in both theory and practice between the two kinds of medicine. Cho Hunyoung (趙憲泳, 1900-1988), for example, successfully showed that Korean medicine was not only distinct from Western medicine but also complementary to it. In so doing, he made a parallel comparison between the two so that Korean medicine could be seen as a part of the “modern” medicine rather than of the “traditional” one.
After the debate, practitioners of Korean medicine broadly accepted the newly established identity of Korean medicine as a counterpart of Western medicine. The advocates founded a journal, Oriental medicine (東洋醫藥), and promoted it as an independent space for the research of Korean Medicine. However, there was a limitation in the project for the self-reliance of Korean Medicine, since the “modernization” of Korean Medicine was achieved by making it as “the other” of Western medicine. Korean medicine couldn’t be entirely independent from the standards of Western medicine.