This study compares and analyzes Asian and European obstetric models in the 18th and 19th centuries. I argue that as obstetric training methods evolved and medical paradigms shifted, the design and style of these models transformed accordingly, gradually developing into forms similar to those still in use today. These changes not only reflect broader transformations in medical knowledge transmission and new ways of understanding the body, but also demonstrate how medical knowledge and material culture shaped each other historically.
This research is inspired in part by Manami Yasui’s research on pregnancy imagery in Meiji-era Japan, where she observed a similar progression from complete illustrations of pregnant women to fetus-only depictions. As three-dimensional teaching tools, medical models offer unique insights into the interactions among technology, medical knowledge, and body perception that complement textual and pictorial sources. The physicality and ability to simulate the human body of models make them particularly effective for revealing the changes in medical paradigms both practically and theoretically.
Drawing from medical history, gender studies, and body theory, this study traces the transformation from Anatomical Venus to Birthing Phantom in Europe, and from medical iki-ningyō (lifelike dolls) to fetal models in East Asia. The comparative analysis reveals how different medical doctrines, knowledge systems, and their pedagogical objectives in training practitioners shaped model design and conceptualization, and in turn, how these models changed obstetric education and training. While these transformations manifested distinctly across cultures, they demonstrate the crucial role of material culture in standardizing and modernizing medical training.

In an era without ultrasound diagnostic equipment, people imaginatively conceived and attempted to approximate the process of fetal growth and birth through available medical knowledge. From the 17th to 19th centuries in Japan, fetal development and childbirth were depicted not only in medical texts but also in women's instructional books and ukiyo-e artwork. An epistemic framework for visualizing the invisible emerged, responding to people's desire to "see" the world inside the body.
This presentation examines how birth and fetal development visualization were represented across diverse media in early modern to modern Japan. By analyzing a comprehensive range of sources including medical manuscripts, anatomical illustrations, ukiyo-e artwork, instructional texts, and popular literature, the study illuminates the process of integrating Western anatomical knowledge into the prevailing medical tradition influenced by China. The analysis demonstrates that fetal growth was a shared interest across medical, artistic, and entertainment domains.
The research concludes that people's desire to peek inside the body drove the visualization of fetuses and birth across medical, artistic, and popular cultural domains. Moreover, the method of Edo-period artists who continuously depicted everyday phenomena transformed practices such as abortion and infanticide into popular cultural content. Simultaneously, this process significantly advanced public understanding of childbirth and interior of the womb in early modern and modern Japan.

Eugenics or the idea of improving the human race was introduced in Japan at the end of the 19th century, and by the beginning of 1900s numerous physicians and other professionals had embraced its ideas and were ready to apply it for “improving the Japanese race”. Eugenic ideas were popularized in the country in the early 20th century through newspaper and magazine articles, and from 1905 eugenicists and their sympathizers started publishing specialized journals such as Jinsei (1905-1918), Yūseigaku (1924-1943), and Minzoku Eisei (1931).
One of the central topics in the above-mentioned journals was the birth and fertility control. Birth control movement in Japan started in the 1920s in the wake of other social movements and reached its peak in 1930-1932, during the Showa depression. Contributors of the eugenic magazines not only discussed theoretical aspects of birth control, but also provided practical information on contraception, pregnancy management, and urged people to choose “fit” partners for the sake of future generations.
In this paper, I will describe and analyze the rhetoric of birth control in the eugenic journals of Yūseigaku (Eugenics) and Yūsei-undō (Eugenic Movement) and introduce eugenicists’ ideas on choosing “fit” partners for having “better” babies.