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W. Michel: On the Dutch-style Medical License of Hirata Chôdayû and its Background. In: Source Materials and Personalities III. Nakatsu Municipal Museum for History and Folklore, Medical Archive Series No 10, Nakatsu City, March 2011, 1-38pp.  [in Japanese]

ABSTRACTS

 On the Dutch-style Medical License of Hirata Chôdayû and its Background

After the birth of the so-called ‘redhead-style of external medicine’ (kômôryû geka) during the 1650s, a growing interest among Japanese physicians and feudal lords in Western drugs, herbs, instruments and treatment methods can be observed. As Western texts and terminology had not yet become accessible even to Japanese interpreters, the instructions and demonstrations given in the Dutch trading post at Dejima played a key role in conveying European knowledge to Japan. For about three decades, certificates issued by the surgeons of the Dutch East India Company turned out to be useful when pursuing a career as a ‘redhead-style physician’. This social breakthrough goes back to 1657, when Hatano Gentô, who was leaving for Edo, asked for a certificate to prove that he had been educated by a Dutch surgeon. Especially during the latter half of the 1660s, several such certificates were issued, but only a few have survived. Based on extensive investigations of Dutch and Japanese source materials, twelve licenses have been identified.

 

These licenses, as well as newly found additional materials, provide valuable information about the circumstances under which medical instructions were imparted, as well as their contents.

The most prominent among a number of new discoveries is a complete, handwritten copy of a license granted to Hirata Chôdayû in 1666 by the surgeons Arnold Dirckz. and Cornelis de Laver and confirmed by the vice-chief of the trading post on Dejima, Nicolaes de Roij, and his assistant Louis Rondel. The copy was made in 1717 by Chôdayû’s son Hirata Dôba, a physician of Lord Ogasawara in Nakatsu, and handed over to his former disciple, Karashima Shôan. During that same year, the domain was handed over to Lord Okudaira.

Formal pledges to the Nagasaki Commissioner (Nagasaki bugyô), genealogies and entries in diaries show a close interaction between feudal lords and physicians in order to absorb and spread Western external medicine during these early decades. Obviously, Western medicine entered Japan from the top of the social pyramid.

In 1673, the central government appointed Nishi Genpo, a veteran interpreter who had received an extraordinarily detailed and euphemistic surgical certificate in 1668, as Portuguese interpreter and Western-style surgeon at the court in Edo. This was the most high-ranking acknowledgement of the new “Dutch-style” medicine. Gradually, the interest in licenses from Dutch trading post surgeons faded away while physicians in all regions of the archipelago started to grant certificates to qualified pupils in their own right.

 

 Akihide OSHIMA: On the Draft "Treatise on the Division of Heaven and Earth" by the Physician Murakami Gensui (1781-1843)

Murakami Gensui, personal physician to the lord of Nakatsu, is well known for his pioneering, semi-public dissection of a human cadaver in 1819, but research in the materials kept by the Murakami Medical Archive has shown that he had also a strong interest in other fields, such as military strategy, Chinese poetry, Dutch language, geography, botany, economy and physics. A recently found manuscript has been identified as the draft of his "Treatise on the Division of Heaven and Earth". It reveals his opposition to traditional Buddhist astronomy as well as his thoughts on the physiology of scurvy and deserves a prominent place among sources to achieve a better understanding of the scope of this outstanding regional physician.

 

 Yoichi YOSHIDA: A Bunsei-period Manuscript from the Ôe Medical Archive

Nakatsu (Oita prefecture), a city of about 85000 inhabitants in the north-eastern part of Kyushu, is known as the birth place of Fukuzawa Yukichi (1825-1901), one of the pioneers of Japan's modernization. During the Edo period, the feudal domain of Nakatsu covered roughly the same area as the city today. From 1717, the Okudaira family ruled here for about one and a half centuries. Lord Okudaira Masataka (1781-1855) in particular developed a strong interest in Dutch learning (rangaku), which had a lasting influence on policies in this region.

Throughout the Edo period, the two branches of the Ôe family in Nakatsu produced physicians serving the local rulers in official positions. A preliminary register of the manuscripts and books preserved in the Ôe Medical Archive has been drawn up during the last two years, but the contents of most of the sources, many of which are difficult to read, is still not known. Recent investigations have revealed a promising manuscript covering the years between 1825 and 1827, when Lord Masataka suddenly decided to retire and entrusted the domain to his still very young son, Masanobu (1809-1832). There is no title, but the 104 folded sheets contain numerous records of the Ôes and other local physicians, as well as notices from the authorities. These shed new light on the medical situation within the domain.

 

  Tomita HOSODA: A Manuscript Copy of Ikeda-style "Tongues and Lips Illustrations"

As in all other countries, smallpox was one of the most feared diseases in Japan. Before the introduction of the cowpox vaccine developed by Edward Jenner (1749-1823), Japanese physicians were well aware of the old Chinese-style inoculation with human smallpox, but as this was extremely risky they usually confined themselves to supportive treatment methods and intensive studies into the causes and progress of this disease.

After his own child fell victim to smallpox, Karashima Shôa
n (1779-1857), physician to Lord Okudaira of Nakatsu, devoted himself to the study of this disease and collected more than 500 books on the subject. He also sent his adopted son to the Ikeda family in Iwakuni in order to copy manuscripts going back to the teachings of Taimankô (Chinese: Dai Mangong). Taimankô (alias Dokuryû Shôeki, 1596-1672) was a monk from Ming China who had immigrated to Japan in 1653. One of his disciples, the physician Ikeda Masanao (1597-1677), arranged his teachings and created lavishly illustrated manuscripts that show the characteristic pustules and the rash on the tongue. While traditional Chinese writings focus on principles, Ikeda pays great attention to symptoms, using coloured illustrations and even creates a three dimensional impression by putting on multiple layers of colours. As these illustrations are difficult to reproduce, only very few Edo-period copies are known and none has been reproduced up to now.