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Ways of Conceptualizing the Real: Scripts, Names, and Materia Medica

in The Premise of Fidelity: Science, Visuality, and Representing the Real in Nineteenth-Century Japan

This chapter concentrates on the process through which Itō Keisuke articulated the Linnaean system in textual representations. The centrality of the concept of the real (shin) in his articulation of ... More

This chapter concentrates on the process through which Itō Keisuke articulated the Linnaean system in textual representations. The centrality of the concept of the real (shin) in his articulation of the Linnaean nomenclature is also examined. The practice of translation in the chapter investigates how the Shōhyaku-sha addressed the issues of naming and names in response to their particular needs through an active and strategic act of translation. It introduces Materia Medica in Japan by Kaibara Ekken. Keisuke's Nominal Differentiations in Western Materia Medica presented the Linnaean binominal scheme. In this scheme, Keisuke saw the possible elucidation of the confused nomenclature of materia medica that blocked the understanding of real plants. His decision to maintain the Roman alphabet in Nominal Differentiations helped in streamlining the process of untangling the mess of variant plant names and organizing the knowledge of materia medica.Less

Modes of Observation and the Real: Exhibition Practices of the Shōhyaku-sha

in The Premise of Fidelity: Science, Visuality, and Representing the Real in Nineteenth-Century Japan

This chapter concentrates on the importance of direct observation, and on how the exhibitions served as a site of contention and reevaluation of previously shared knowledge by privileging the actual ... More

This chapter concentrates on the importance of direct observation, and on how the exhibitions served as a site of contention and reevaluation of previously shared knowledge by privileging the actual object. The Shōhyaku-sha did not “invent” the honzō kai gathering. The proliferating honzō kai confined in the latter half of the eighteenth century provided ideal venues for engaging in the study of materia medica as envisioned by Kaibara Ekken. The strategies of Shōhyaku-sha for discerning the real (shin) are explained. It is noted that heterogeneity distinguished the sources with which the real could be founded. The display of “unnamed” objects indicated the confidence in the process of inquiry. The notion of the real framed the heterogeneity of the natural world and the epistemological nomination derived from materia medica.Less

A Silk Road of Pharmaceuticals and Formulas

Andrew Edmund Goble

in Confluences of Medicine in Medieval Japan: Buddhist Healing, Chinese Knowledge, Islamic Formulas, and Wounds of War

This chapter examines the pharmaceutical aspects of the new knowledge available in the East Asian macroculture and how Kajiwara Shōzen benefited from access to and information about materia medica ... More

This chapter examines the pharmaceutical aspects of the new knowledge available in the East Asian macroculture and how Kajiwara Shōzen benefited from access to and information about materia medica transported along the so-called Pharmaceutical Silk Road. The chapter first considers the increasing availability of overseas materia medica as well as the technical challenges faced by Shōzen in trying to understand formulas and materia medica. It then discusses some of the changes in Chinese medicine between the Tang and Song eras and the influence of Islamic medicine on Song medicine. It also explores the new illness category of disorders of qi and how it was understood by Shōzen. It concludes with some examples of Shōzen's use of formulas to illustrate how the preceding elements converged to influence Japanese medicine.Less

Picturing the Real: Questions of Fidelity and Processes of Pictorial Representation

in The Premise of Fidelity: Science, Visuality, and Representing the Real in Nineteenth-Century Japan

This chapter describes copper etching and ink-rubbing prints, the fundamental key to the understanding of which was the idea of the real (shin, the second character of the compound shashin). The ... More

This chapter describes copper etching and ink-rubbing prints, the fundamental key to the understanding of which was the idea of the real (shin, the second character of the compound shashin). The analysis of ink-rubbing prints determined the evaluation of materia medica as a pictorialized testament of both the existence of the represented object and the image maker's direct encounter with it. The capability of copper-etching technology to develop the original down to the frailest detail and the essential contact with the physical “original” in ink-rubbing prints merged with one another as both point to their upholding “shin form,” the real form of the represented plant. Furthermore, ink-rubbing prints manifested to and explained the existence of particular plants, while copperplate prints were viewed as a way to dependably duplicate the already mapped illustration.Less

The Eye of the Shōhyaku-sha: Between Seeing and Knowing

in The Premise of Fidelity: Science, Visuality, and Representing the Real in Nineteenth-Century Japan

This chapter historically places Honzō shashin within the local context of Owari, and within the discursive context of medicine and materia medica. Honzō shashin, which served as a port of entry for ... More

This chapter historically places Honzō shashin within the local context of Owari, and within the discursive context of medicine and materia medica. Honzō shashin, which served as a port of entry for reimagining the intellectual and social environment within which Mizutani Hōbun and his contemporaries functioned, illustrated the organization of knowledge, the observation of the real, and the exploration of new methods of representation. The promotion of vaccination by Itō Keisuke exhibited his conviction that efficacy was significant to the work of the physician. The importance of efficacy led to the approach to knowledge by Keisuke. The concept of shin brought the process of representation. In the cases of deployment of shin, the link between the existent subject of the representation and the representation itself is foregrounded as the primary value of the resulting image.Less

The Bencao gangmu and the World It Created

Federico Marcon

in The Knowledge of Nature and the Nature of Knowledge in Early Modern Japan

This chapter introduces the early history of materia medica in China and Japan before the seventeenth century. It focuses in particular on Li Shizhen’s Bencao gangmu, which after its publication in ... More

This chapter introduces the early history of materia medica in China and Japan before the seventeenth century. It focuses in particular on Li Shizhen’s Bencao gangmu, which after its publication in 1596 became the most influential source of natural knowledge in East Asia. It presents its structure, philosophical assumptions, terminology, and classifying methodology, which constituted the unchallenged template of all Japanese works on natural history until the nineteenth century.Less

The Early History of Tea: Myth and Reality

James A. Benn

in Tea in China: A Religious and Cultural History

This chapter discusses claims for the great antiquity of tea drinking in China found in medieval sources such as the Classic of Tea (Cha jing). It analyses the mythology of the discovery of tea by ... More

This chapter discusses claims for the great antiquity of tea drinking in China found in medieval sources such as the Classic of Tea (Cha jing). It analyses the mythology of the discovery of tea by the culture hero Shennong, the Divine Husbandman (traditional reign dates 2737–2697 B.C.E.) and evaluates the surviving evidence for early tea drinking. It discusses the different terminology used for the tea plant prior to the Tang dynasty.Less

Absence, Abundance, and Excess: Substances and Sowa Rigpa in Ladakh since the 1960s

Calum Blaikie

in Locating the Medical: Explorations in South Asian History

This chapter examines the ways in which changing patterns of materia medica circulation have shaped Sowa Rigpa (Tibetan medicine) pharmacy, practice and social organization in Ladakh since the 1960s. ... More

This chapter examines the ways in which changing patterns of materia medica circulation have shaped Sowa Rigpa (Tibetan medicine) pharmacy, practice and social organization in Ladakh since the 1960s. It argues that rapid growth in the availability of formerly limited raw materials was key to the emergence of larger scales of drug production and to the proliferation, complexification and commodification of medicines. These phenomena, in turn, allowed for the emergence of professionalized forms of medical practice, the enfranchisement of certain groups, ideas and practices, and the marginalisation of others. By charting the shifting material, social, economic and pharmaceutical dimensions of Ladakhi Sowa Rigpa in relation to one another, the chapter questions the constitution and boundaries of ‘the medical realm’.Less

Warfare, Wound Medicine, and Song Medical Knowledge

Andrew Edmund Goble

in Confluences of Medicine in Medieval Japan: Buddhist Healing, Chinese Knowledge, Islamic Formulas, and Wounds of War

This chapter examines the emergence of wound medicine as a medical specialty in response to the eruption of violence and warfare in Japan in the early fourteenth century, with particular emphasis on ... More

This chapter examines the emergence of wound medicine as a medical specialty in response to the eruption of violence and warfare in Japan in the early fourteenth century, with particular emphasis on factors that shaped the availability and reception of Song medical knowledge. It begins by discussing the new warfare environment from the 1330s that arose after the destruction of the Kamakura bakufu. It then provides an overview of wound medicine prior to the 1330s and goes on to consider sources of knowledge for wound medicine, along with various items of materia medica mentioned in wound medicine texts such as Sanyin fang. It also explores how Song-era Chinese medicine influenced Japanese wound medicine. The chapter shows that physicians in medieval Japan gained experience in treating wounds by extrapolating from generic knowledge and that Song medicine provided—courtesy of Sanyin fang—a conceptual basis for wound medicine where one did not exist before.Less

Medical Epitome: Assembling Pharmacological Knowledge in Late Byzantium

Petros Bouras-Vallianatos

in Innovation in Byzantine Medicine: The Writings of John Zacharias Aktouarios (c.1275-c.1330)

This chapter deals with the last two books of the Medical Epitome, which focus on pharmacology. John’s material presents a unique amalgamation of earlier Greek and Byzantine sources with recently ... More

This chapter deals with the last two books of the Medical Epitome, which focus on pharmacology. John’s material presents a unique amalgamation of earlier Greek and Byzantine sources with recently introduced Arabic pharmacological lore. It is argued that, unlike the first four books, the last two books may be addressed not only to philiatroi but also to the expert reader, since they provide a revision of the subject that was much needed in late Byzantium. Special emphasis is given to the role of experience (peira) in the pharmacological part, which, unlike in the first four books, plays an important role in the selection process here, as it is often highlighted by John himself. The analysis then shifts to John’s sources, including Galen’s On the Composition of Drugs According to Places and also the Greek translation (Ephodia tou Apodēmountos) of the famous medieval Arabic medical text by Ibn al-Jazzār Zād al-Musāfir wa-Qūt al-Ḥāḍir, more commonly known by its Latin title Viaticum. A particular section is devoted to John’s adaptation of Arabic pharmacology, including his many recipes for sugar-based potions and his reference to oriental materia medica. In the first case, a potential unedited source ascribed to an otherwise unknown author, one Chariton, is identified. As regards oriental ingredients such as zedoary, galangal, cubeb pepper, and various kinds of myrobalan, a further contextualization is attempted by making use of other contemporary non-medical sources, especially merchants’ accounts, which show that many of these substances were readily available in Constantinople, although usually at a high price.Less

Fueling Industrialization in the Age of Coal

Shellen Xiao Wu

in Empires of Coal: Fueling China's Entry into the Modern World Order, 1860-1920

In order to understand how and why a momentous change of the Chinese worldview occurred in the late nineteenth century, chapter 1 begins with a discussion of pre-modern forms of geological knowledge ... More

In order to understand how and why a momentous change of the Chinese worldview occurred in the late nineteenth century, chapter 1 begins with a discussion of pre-modern forms of geological knowledge in ChinaLess

Primers, Medical Texts, and Other Works

Peter Francis Kornicki

in Languages, scripts, and Chinese texts in East Asia

This chapter follows on from Chapters 8 and 9, which were devoted to Buddhist and Confucian texts, and applies a similar analysis to a variety of other texts with a focus on those that were subjected ... More

This chapter follows on from Chapters 8 and 9, which were devoted to Buddhist and Confucian texts, and applies a similar analysis to a variety of other texts with a focus on those that were subjected to a process of vernacularization. The first genre discussed is that of primers, which initially existed solely to teach the young the elements of Sinitic. Second, medical texts are examined in some depth, for the botanic and linguistic diversity of East Asia necessitated the production of glossaries giving the local names for plants appearing in Chinese pharmacopoeia and later the development of local pharmacopoeia based on locally available plants. Third, conduct books for women are taken up, for the different expectations of women in East Asian societies made Chinese imports unsuitable. Subsequently, a Tang-dynasty manual of statecraft, a manual of forensic medicine, Chinese vernacular fiction, and books about the West are discussed.Less

Inventorying Nature: Tokugawa Yoshimune and the Sponsorship of Honzōgaku in Eighteenth-Century Japan

Federico Marcon

in Japan at Nature's Edge: The Environmental Context of a Global Power

This chapter examines the organizational effort behind the honzōgaku surveys under the aegis of Tokugawa Yoshimune in eighteenth-century Japan. Yoshimune enlisted scholars to produce a complete ... More

This chapter examines the organizational effort behind the honzōgaku surveys under the aegis of Tokugawa Yoshimune in eighteenth-century Japan. Yoshimune enlisted scholars to produce a complete survey of all species of plants and animals that could be found in Japan. The survey campaign was led by the pharmacologist Niwa Shōhaku. State sponsorship of specialized scholars affected in particular the structure and stakes of the field of honzōgaku, usually translated as “pharmacology” or “materia medica.” This chapter considers early attempts to give a comprehensive classification of all existing species of plants and animals, with particular emphasis on Shobutsu ruisan by Inō Jakusui. It also discusses the impact of the honzōgaku surveys on the field of nature studies. It shows that honzōgaku practitioners and the study of plants and animals both acquired cultural value due to natural history's connection to matters of economic livelihood and national prosperity.Less

The Biography of a Medicine

Sienna R. Craig

in Healing Elements: Efficacy and the Social Ecologies of Tibetan Medicine

Chapter 6 examines how amchi interact with conservation-development practitioners, policies, and projects. The chapter draws on fieldwork from Yunnan Province, China—a region actually called ... More

Chapter 6 examines how amchi interact with conservation-development practitioners, policies, and projects. The chapter draws on fieldwork from Yunnan Province, China—a region actually called “Shangri-La”—as well as ethnography from Nepal and Bhutan. Perhaps surprisingly, insights about the nature of health and illness, the social lives of medicines, and the political-economic possibilities and constraints for meeting global health needs rarely intersect with insights gleaned from political ecology. Much of what exists in both academic and popular literature tends to focus on the interface between ethnobotany and biomedicine, specifically around bioprospecting or biopiracy: namely, the search for “magic bullet” plants and the well-founded fears that indigenous knowledge will be appropriated and commodified without sufficient forethought or compensation. Some work has focused on the ways plant knowledge is also social knowledge—the sense that herbal remedies are biocultural phenomena whose meanings and value are at once medical and social. Other points of convergence have occurred around issues of environmental health and the bio-psycho-social effects of conservation-induced displacement, natural disasters, or otherwise environmentally prompted migrations on local populations. This chapter links medical anthropology and political ecology by examining connections between the commodification of nature and culture in the context of amchi involvement with conservation-development projects, and how this relates to their role as healthcare providers and transmitters of Tibetan medical knowledge.Less

Tea: Invigorating the Body, Mind, and Society in the Song Dynasty

James A. Benn

in Tea in China: A Religious and Cultural History

This chapter discusses tea culture during the Song dynasty with reference to developments in horticulture, state policy, urbanism, and changing tastes in elite and popular culture. It describes new ... More

This chapter discusses tea culture during the Song dynasty with reference to developments in horticulture, state policy, urbanism, and changing tastes in elite and popular culture. It describes new tea growing areas in Fujian and the opening of new tea plantations. Changes in how tea was processed and consumed were also significant. The competition of tea with other popular medicinal decoctions is explored.Less