| Source Materials and Personalities V. Nakatsu Municipal Museum for History and Folklore, Medical Archive Series No 11, Nakatsu City, March 2013, 150 pp. [in Japanese] |
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ABSTRACTS |
Yoichi YOSHIDA: On Murakami Genshû’s Manuscript “Verbatim Record of The Analects of Confucius” (1769)
‘’The Murakami Medical Archive (Oita Prefecture, Nakatsu City) holds a manuscript Rongo kikigaki (“Verbatim Record of The Analects of Confucius”) that was written by Murakami Genshû (1745-1818) in 1769. From the mid-17th century, the heads of this family served as physicians to the Nakatsu clan. As can be seen from this old manuscript, Murakami attended lectures given by the poet Kô Kappa (1724-1776). Kô, a descendant of a naturalized Chinese, had studied under the Confucianist scholar Ishijima Tsukuba (1708-1758) at a time when literary life in Kyôto was flourishing. His teacher, Ishijima, was on good terms with Minagawa Kien (1734-1807), who promulgated unique thoughts on Chinese oracles and on the meaning of Chinese characters. He also enjoyed a close relationship with Ryû Sôro (1715-1792), who was famous for his Chinese-style poems. Around 1767, after many years of learning in such a stimulating environment, Kô Kappa established his own private academy in Kyôto that soon attracted illustrious men of letters such as the poet Kan Chazan (1748-1827) from Fukuyama and the Confucianist scholar Nawa Rodô (1727-1789) from Himeji, as well as Nakai Chikuzan (1730-1804), who ran the ‘ Kaitoku-Hall’ (Kaitokudô), and Yosa Buson (1716-1784), known for his revival of Haiku poetry.
No source material providing evidence of Genshû’s journey to Kyôto has yet been identified, but this manuscript proves that he must have stayed there for a considerable period of time studying subjects that were not related to the medical profession to which he belonged. The “Verbatim Record of The Analects of Confucius” includes many quotations from Ogyû Sorai’s commentary Rongo-chô, which strongly opposes Neo-Confucianistic interpretations of “The Analects”. Although it has yet to be shown to what extent Murakami Genshû incorporated these teachings and their underlying philosophical stance into his subsequent activities and studies, this manuscript sheds new light on Confucian studies in the domain of Nakatsu.
Akihide OSHIMA: Medical Concepts and Treatment Methods from the Manuscript “Master Untaku’s Instructions on Dysentery”
The Ôe Medical Archive (Oita Prefecture, Nakatsu City) holds a manuscript entitled “Untaku sensei rishitsu kôju” (“Master Untaku’s Instructions on Dysentery”) that was considered to convey the early teachings of Ôe Untaku (1822-1899), a well-known physician and headmaster of the Nakatsu Medical School. However, further investigations revealed that these instructions actually go back to Ôe Bunmei Norishige (1757-1812), one of his ancestors who, following the customs of his time, also used pen names such as Hiroshi, Hakuyô, and Untaku.
Master Untaku’s thoughts were written down in a booklet of 40 pages (27ﾗ20cm) by an unknown disciple. The term rishitsu, usually translated as dysentery, had its roots in Chinese medicine and referred to an infection of the digestive system that frequently occurred in summer and autumn. Ôe Bunmei was quite familiar with the medical literature from China’s Ming Dynasty and Jin Dynasty, but he preferred the “Treatise on Cold Damage Disorders” (Jap. Shôkan-ron), the “Essential Medical Treasures of the Golden Chamber” (Jap. Kinki yôryaku), and the writings of the Japanese physician Nagoya Gen'i (1628-1696). Nagoya was of independent mind and refuted medical doctrines postulated after the Song Dynasty, instead pursuing a revival of earlier writings that were revised using observation and contemporary experience. Clearly, Ôe Bunmei identified closely with this so-called “Old School” (ko-ihô) founded by Nagoya, and came up with ideas of his own on the treatment of dysentery, introducing moxibustion and a medical “Untaku Potion”. With its combination of tradition, observation and experiment, “Master Untaku’s Instructions on Dysentery” marks a turning point in the history of the Ôe family. Ôe Bunmei’s attitude and thinking were adopted by his descendants, who continued to serve as physicians to the Nakatsu clan until the end of the Tokugawa era.
Wolfgang MICHEL: On Ôe Okuji’s Dômyaku Ichiranzu (‘Synoptic Chart of Arteries’) and its Background
In 1869, the new Meiji government decided to suppress traditional Sino-Japanese medicine and introduce modern Western medical education based on the German model. While Tokyo University hired European, preferably German, professors to train their elite students, less gifted aspirants to the medical profession and practicing physicians all over the country had to attend one of the regional medical schools (igakkô) to obtain their obligatory medical licenses. Most of these schools were established by prefectural and municipal assemblies that felt an obligation to provide sufficient services to the local community. In 1882, the Ministry of Education divided these institutions into two groups. Whereas those in the first group (kô) were allowed to issue licenses to students who passed their final examinations, the vast majority of schools belonging to the second group (otsu) were required to organize additional examinations. Understandably, many schools in the second category sought to upgrade to the first category, but the required extension of the curriculum to four years and the requirement that at least three teachers with a doctoral degree (igakushi) be employed, in addition to other specifications, placed a heavy financial burden on students and local budgets.
Ôe Okuji (1864-1919), whose ancestors had served as physicians in the domain of Nakatsu for generations, became the first in his family to receive a medical education under this new system by entering the Public Medical School of Ôita Prefecture (Ôita-ken kôritsu igakkô).
This school was founded in 1880, and was plagued by the difficulties experienced by all early Meiji-era institutions. Torigata Tsunekichi, a young graduate from Tokyo University, managed the establishment, taking care of dozens of students, most of whom were older than him. This school in the small city of Ôita opened its doors by offering a three-year program (soon expanded to four years) with courses in physics, chemistry, surgery, internal medicine, pharmaceutics, ophthalmology, gynecology, anatomy, and physiology, and a one-year internship in the adjoining hospital. Four reports compiled by Tomigata provide detailed information on the curriculum, teaching staff, buildings, regulations, equipment, and subjects and examinations, including statistics related to the small affiliated hospital. Although the school ran smoothly for a while, it soon ran out of funds. In 1889, after the government in Tokyo had stopped providing regional subsidies to public medical schools, the Ôita Medical School closed its doors, as did many other regional schools. The hospital was reopened later that year, and continued to operate as a prefectural hospital.
The Ôe Medical Archive holds a few items from the years Ôe Okuji spent in Ôita: a diary that contains occasional notes made in 1885, lecture notes, and several books, which primarily contain printed lectures given by foreign professors at Tokyo University, including Benjamin Karl Leopold Müller, Theodor Eduard Hoffmann, and Erwin Baelz. Because medical literature was extremely expensive and difficult to obtain, students used to write down lectures word by word.
Anatomical instruction was also based on texts. Because Japanese society abhorred the idea of postmortal dissection, there was hardly any opportunity for students to see inside the human body, let alone conduct dissections themselves. In Ôita, although a papier-mâché anatomical model (probably imported at great expense from Jérôme L. Auzoux) was occasionally shown to students, it was usually kept locked away. Books held by the library could not be taken out, but had to be read there.
In 1876, Imada Tsukanu (1850-1889), an anatomy professor at Tokyo University, published at his own expense a life-sized color chart of the human artery system using the “Icon synoptica arteriarum corporis humani” printed by Robert Friedrich Froriep (1804-1861) at the famous Landes-Industrie-Comptoir publishing firm in Weimar (Germany). Although Imada’s version, Dômyaku Ichiranzu, was widely circulated among medical institutions throughout Japan, only a few copies have survived to the present day. The chart used in Ôita vanished long ago. However, Ôe Okuji, a young man deeply rooted in tradition, did what monks and scholars in Japan had been doing since the beginning of religious and secular scholarship: he made a meticulous copy of Imada’s copperplate engraving. Considering his busy schedule of classes, this project must have taken weeks, after which it must have been impossible for him not to know the human arterial system. After graduating in 1886, he mounted these sheets and kept the scroll in his clinic. A cursory look at this copy was enough to refresh his memory of the hardships suffered in those early years of his modern medical education.
Wolfgang MICHEL: On the Book Shindan zusetsu (ﾒIllustrated Physical Diagnosisﾓ) and Ôe Okuji’s Manuscript Copy
Surviving source materials relating to education in 19th-century regional medical schools (igakkô) are rare, partly because a lack of interest among following generations, and partly because of the short life span of many of those institutions. Ôe Okuji’s (1864-1919) ancestors served as physicians in the domain of Nakatsu for more than 150 years. His father, Untaku (1822-1899), a widely respected man with many disciples, successfully switched from Sino-Japanese to Western-style medicine during those dramatic decades of the late Tokugawa era. Having grown up in the early years of the Meiji Restoration, Okuji was the first in his family to receive a Western-style education, at the Ôita Prefectural Medical School, from which he graduated in 1886. Some of his books and lecture notes are held by the Ôe Medical Archive (Nakatsu), to which one of the items is unique. This is copy of a manuscript entitled “Illustrated Physical Diagnosis - Illustrations” (Shindan zusetsu - zufu). The accompanying booklet “Illustrated Physical Diagnosis” (Shindan zusetsu) was published in 1879 by Yoshimatsu Bunji. While the first volume of Yoshimatsu’s print can be found in two libraries, the second volume containing the illustrations has vanished.
Had Yoshimatsu’s work simply been a translation of the foreign book the “Manual of Physical Diagnosis” published in 1878 in New York by the pathologist Francis Delafield (as is suggested by Yoshimatsu’s title), this disappearance would not be a problem. However, being well aware of Delafield’s shortcomings, Yoshimatsu added extensive explanations, each of which covered almost half a page. Furthermore, comparing Ôe’s copy with Delafield’s manual reveals that Yoshimatsu produced a completely new set of illustrations.
Yoshimatsu started with so-called anatomical “fugitive sheets” taken from Delafield’s book. These superimposed hinged flaps enable readers to observe the interior of a human body as if they were conducting a dissection. The earliest examples of such sheets occurred in European books during the early 16th century. Around 1680, a copy of the Dutch edition of Johannes Remmelin’s famous “Catoptrum microcosmicum” arrived in Nagasaki. For decades, handmade copies circulated among Japanese physicians until a copy was printed as the “Dutch Anatomical Atlas of the Whole Body” (Oranda zenku naigai bungô-zu) in 1772, shortly before publication of the epoch-making “New Book on Anatomy” (Kaitai shinsho). Hence, physicians in 19th-century Japan were already familiar with this kind of anatomical representation.
Delafield’s manual contains only a set of superimposed flaps, but Yoshimatsu extends it by producing a series of pictures showing the location of organs and certain abnormalities. He also includes drawings of several types of stethoscopes, a spirometer, a cyrtometer, a stethogoniometer, a stethometer, and Étienne-Jules Marey’s famous sphygmograph. Most of these diagnostic instruments were recent inventions and their depiction added greatly to the practical value of Yoshimatsu’s booklet.
The early years of the Meiji government greatly affected everyone involved in medicine. However, elements of tradition facilitated the adoption of new concepts relating to the human body and illness and treatment, and also stimulated the involvement of the authorities in questions of medical education and practice. Although revolutionary in content, Yoshimatsu’s publication also exhibits traits of Japan’s long tradition of absorbing foreign knowledge. Eleven years after the government decided to suppress traditional medicine in favor of the Western medical paradigm, Yoshimatsu did what Japanese physicians had been doing since they first encountered “Dutch medicine” in the 1650s: he collected more information, and critically assessed new knowledge from abroad before using it to revise his text.
The young student Ôe Okuji had his own ways of coping with difficult circumstances. Because of substantial cultural obstacles to the dissection of human corpses in Japan, he had limited opportunities to observe an autopsy during his years in Ôita. Therefore, he used printed materials to make anatomical drawings. Motivated by Yoshimatsu’s illustrations, Ôe recreated his figurative sheets with great accuracy. His finished copy was bound at a local branch of the famous book dealer Murakami Kanbei (Kyôto). Ôe was undoubtedly proud of the work to which he impressively dedicated much time and effort that he would not easily have forgotten.
