Materia medica in Edo period

[Jamesdelnero]

I have a question.
.I read an article of professor Tsuyoshi Awaya http://homepage1.nifty.com/awaya/hp/ronbun/r010.html say:There are examples of the brain, liver, lungs, heart, bone, flesh, and fetus being utilized as medicine in Japan in past times.

I also read an article of John Z Bowers :Dissection of the human body was forbidden, and anatomical charts were inaccurate, based as they were on theory and casual observation of the dismemberment of a beheaded corpse after an execution.
I have read this article http://wolfgangmichel.web.fc2.com/publ/aufs/64/64.htm It is says:The dissection of human bodies was forbidden since it conflicted with the tenets of Buddhism. However, Yamawaki and Genteki Kosugi (1734-91) managed to obtain permission from the authorities to perform a dissection.

My question is :From where they were taken (brain, liver, lungs, heart, bone, flesh) if dissection of human body was forbidden? They were taken only the bodies of criminal?

[Owarikenshi]

Just as in Europe and America during the same time period, if far less frequently, bodies were obtained by clandestine means; "grave-robbing" and the like.

Since executed criminals from the lower classes were basically thrown into burial pits at the execution ground with no more consideration than garbage, and the corpse handlers were all outcastes, there can't have been a high level of surveillance after the fact. I would imagine a bit of bribery could get the job done.

Given the relatively high status of physicians in those days, however, and the fact that dissection was very illegal, they definitely couldn't get caught dead (so to speak!) doing it. The relative influence of Buddhism waxed and waned throughout the entire period and varied regionally, so I'd say it was more a matter of fear of the law than religious objections.

From around 1600 on there was also slow but steady importation of "ranpo" ("Dutch" medicine) books, initially from Holland and later, near the end of the 18th century, from England and Germany besides. Throughout the Edo period there were also a few European physicians practicing in Nagasaki to serve the foreign population there, and once they began to teach their ideas were promoted, notably by several prominent Japanese medical families.

While surgery, which is not practiced in Chinese medicine, was always of particular interest due to its martial applications, the "ranpo" movement only really gained traction with Tokugawa officialdom once smallpox innoculation caught on in the early 19th century.

Owarikenshi

[heron]

Traditional Chinese Medicine used several ingredients of human origin
http://www.springerlink.com/content/r3371v1625353774/. While doing research on medicine in Japan at the end of the Edo period I came across some of them (urine, pubic hair, ground bones), but not human organs. That doesn’t mean they weren’t used, just that they were probably not that common. I found quite a few references to miira – mummies – http://www.worldlingo.com/ma/enwiki/en/Mellified_Man
but this would be imported material – as probably were most of the more exotic and unusual Chinese ingredients. Quite a lot of medicines were also imported from Korea. Within Japan hunters provided pharmacists and doctors with animal material from deer, monkeys, bears, otters, tanuki and so on. It’s possible that these were passed off as human. While some “grave robbing”, or sale of human parts by those in charge of the burial of criminal corpses or exploitation of long-dead bones and skulls from old battlefields probably did happen, the only instance I have read of is in the life of the Japan’s first woman doctor, Ogino Ginko, who organised her fellow students to steal bones from the burial ground behind Ekoin temple, Kozukkapara (in Beyond the Blossoming Fields by Watanabe Junichi). I think this was around 1882, anyway, well into Meiji.
Perhaps human material also came from foetuses or still born children. The only human material in my modern TCM Materia Medica is the placenta, but Japanese midwives had a strict procedure for burying the placenta after childbirth (William R Lindsay: Fertility and Pleasure p132). The human body and its uses in life and death are deeply entwined with beliefs of karma and pollution and bound by many rituals – quite a fascinating subject.

[Jamesdelnero]

Also in europe similar drugs were used(The medical properties of human flesh were believed in throughout mediaeval Europe and even in much later times).
And i read article of John Z bower http://journals.lww.com/academicmedicine/Citation/1965/05000/Pompe_van_Meerdervoort_and_the_First_Western.6.aspx
(The chinese and japanese did not permit dissection of human body in adeherence to buddhist dogma regarding the inviolability of the body.The belief persists even today the inviolability of the bodyhttp://factsanddetails.com/japan.php?itemid=604&catid=18(Many Asians believe that the soul and the body are linked together. They are reluctant to allow the corneas, heart and other organs of the deceased to be used in transplant operations because they believe that lost limbs and organs will "defile" the body and not accompany it to the next world).however, we need to deepen even reading articles http://jsmh.umin.jp/journal_e.html.

Heron advise me some articles to learn more?

[heron]

I'll have a look through my notes to see if I have anything else on this subject. I found the Wellcome Library very useful
http://library.wellcome.ac.uk/
I searched their catalog, and when I was in London spent a few days reading there. They have a great collection of Edo period medical text books plus practically every article ever written on anything to do with the history of medicine. I don't know how much can be found and read on-line - because I don't have any academic affiliation I don't have access to a lot of available articles so I tend to buy or borrow books.

[Jamesdelnero]

Thank You Heron for information, however, I found interesting article by Professor Ogawa Teizo in this book 16th general assembly of the Japan medical congress, April 1963, Osaka said that practically the until Heian period the dissection was forbidden by law but by 1192 with Kamakura shogunate there were no laws to punish the mutilation of bodies among the population even if such an act was unacceptable,is in contradiction with what they say Wolfgang Michel and John Z bowers in their article by saying that the dissection was forbidden in Edo period,may be that during the Edo period, there was enacted a law that prohibited but not found written anywhere,however, that dead bodies was touched only by burakumin and certainly the dissection was forbidden by religions in Japan in Edo period.however, since the Meiji period was forbidden to produce these drugs because they lacked scientific merit.

[Jamesdelnero]

what he says Prof. Akihito Hagihara matches what they say the prof wolfgang michel and John Z Bowers but not with Teizo Ogawa.However, Professor Ogawa was a researcher of Japanese history of medicine university of the Juntendo.Probably in the Edo period was reintroduced to the law but I do not know.

I think the points to be searched,are of the following:prove that if in subsequent periods heian dissection was forbidden by law or only by religions.

If the organs were taken only from criminals in Edo period

Heron can you help me in this quest?

[Jamesdelnero]

So who can help me?

[Jamesdelnero]

I think that also the articles of Professor John Z Bowers and Teizo Ogawa are interesting.

[Jamesdelnero]

I found this:1754 年（宝暦4）、六角獄舎の罪人が処刑されることが解り、東洋は小浜藩医であった小杉玄適（※4）、原松庵、伊藤友信との連署で京都所司代に遺体の解剖許可を懇請した。当時、人体解剖は禁止されていたが、京都所司代酒井忠用は小浜藩主であり、小杉玄適は侍医でもあったためにこれを許可した。
and this:日本で初めて、解剖の許可が許されたのは江戸時代の中期である。当時の元号で言えば、宝暦四年（1754）であり、歴史的に見れば近世になってからの事である。
　では、なぜ解剖が禁じられて来たのか。それは大宝元年（701）刑部（おさかべ）親王・藤原不比等らが編纂した法律の「大宝律令」による。
　 大宝律令は日本の法律の「もとじめ」である。その中に、「人間の解剖は行ってはならない」とある。以来、江戸時代の半ばまで約千年以上、解剖はしてはならない事であった。つまり、ずっと禁じられて来たのである。

then the dissection was also prohibited in period Edo because Toyo Yamawaki asked permission to a minister of kyoto

[lordameth]

I'm afraid I have not read it, so I don't know quite how useful or applicable it will be for your question, but the following link just came up on a mailing list that I'm on. I saw the words "materia medica" and immediately remembered this thread...

I hope this might help answer the question, and illuminate other interesting aspects of the situation of Edo period anatomical studies, etc.

"Materia Medica in Edo Period Japan, The Case of Mummy, Takai Ranzan's Shokuji kai, Part Two, by Michael Kinski, Berlin.
From Japonica Humboldtiana 9 (2005)

http://edoc.hu-berlin.de/japonica-hu/9/kinski-michael-55/PDF/kinski.pdf
_________________
My blog on Japanese art & history: http://chaari.wordpress.com

紫水晶殿 - The Amethyst Lord

[heron]

Great find

[Jamesdelnero]

I read it but my english is not good if someone helps me and I found this article that may be interesting:

Takeshi Ishide: Prohibition of autopsy by The Edo shogunate http://mitizane.ll.chiba-u.jp/metadb/up/igakukai/84-5-221.pdf

[heron]

This is my attempt at translating the above article: please correct any mistakes you may find (if anyone has the time to read the original).

Takeshi Ishide: Prohibition of autopsy by the Edo shogunate.


Firstly:
In our country from ancient times until the period of the Edo Bakufu government the common belief has been that dissection of human corpses was forbidden. According to Meijizen Nihon kaibou shi (History of Dissection before the Meiji period) the earliest recorded human dissection was described in a mandate from the Yuuryaku Emperor( second half of 5thc) (Nihonshoki: vol:14). However this was a sort of forensic dissection not a systematic dissection. Moreover in Meijizen Hihon Kaibou shi (we read) “Among ordinary people if kakarumono occurred there is no record of it in historical writings.” Kakarumono means dissection of human corpses.
The author of A History of Medicine, Ogawa Teizou (writes) When we look at the history of the legal system, in the Taiho Code (701) there seems to be a prohibition which stipulates human dissection. In the era of military government when the Code (ritsuryou) lost its effectiveness this was not so much a stipulation as a traditional way of thinking, harking back to the Code, that to cause harm to a dead body was unacceptable, that is to say it offended common reason and was punished.”
The Taiho Code (Taiho 1 701) is our country’s earliest legal code but when Tokugawa Ieyasu initiated an investigation into Japan’s early codes, at the beginning of the Edo Bakufu, it no longer existed. The content was only a speculation on fragments of the collection made after the Taiho Code, the Yourou Code. Was human dissection occurring on such a scale in ancient Japan that it needed to be forbidden by law?
In the special conditions of the warrior society, in the sengoku period, during battle in pursuit of the enemy, instead of taking heads as proof of one’s exploits, noses were sliced off and carried back and crosses and other cuts were made as marks in the back of the legs of corpses (Meiryou Kouhan?) Also, though its origin is not clear, corpses were used to test the sharpness of swords – tameshigiri.
Within my humble opinion only one written example of reproof for destruction of a corpse during the Edo period has come to light. The author, Hasegawa Shin, made a collection of historical records of 370 cases of tekiuchi (revenge) – some ten volumes, entitled Nihon tekiuchi iso. In this is found the case called The priest of Touroudou . In Kyouhou 19 (1734) in order to avenge his younger brother, Okayama-Ikeda han samurai turned priest Asano Yasuzaemon attacked another priest, Yoichi, at Kouyasan.
After he had put an end to Yoichi, Yasuzaemon made several cuts on the body and then trampled it in the hearth. This act was recorded as “sainami” 虐. Perhaps this means the same as destruction of a corpse. In order to carry out this action which went far beyond the unwritten laws of humanity, Yasuzaemon acted without the revenge being confirmed by Kouyasan and with no permission to leave. However, this assertion was made on the part of Kouyasan and was not a judgment of the Bakufu
Despite consulting several kanwa and classical Japanese dictionaries I (the author) cannot find a reading of sainami for 虐。Sainamu (苛) is there, or ijimeru koto. Sainami 虐 does not appear in dictionaries of Buddhist usage either.
In the Edo Bakufu code of punishment Osada Megaki Hyakkajou 御定書百箇条 there are no regulations concerning the destruction of corpses. The author of 臓志 (zoushi), Yamawaki Touyou, as is well known, was opposed by the group who did not believe in the usefulness of dissection, Sano Antei, Yoshimasa Toudou, Tanaka Einobu, Fukuoka Sadaaki etc. but among Bakufu officials, doctors, or Confucian scholars, no record of criticism (or judgment) has come to light.
Yamawaki Touyou consulted (his) teacher Gotou Ryouzan and in the reply is the statement, “fuwake (dissection) wa kan no sei suru tokoro ni shite” Kan means Edo Bakufu, sei suru means taking decisions. It does not state that the Bakufu forbade dissection. So what does this statement indicate?
Till now the subjects of dissection in the Edo period were all corpses of executed criminals. All executions in Edo districts, which were under the direct control of the Bakufu, occurred under Bakufu jurisdiction. Therefore all dissections took place under the Bakufu system. There is no record of a ban on dissection. If we take all these things into consideration there are questions about whether a ban existed from the beginning or not.
Incidentally, if we turn out eyes to the system of capital punishment under the Edo Bakufu we can glimpse why it was not all that simple for the Bakufu to give permission to dissection. In this article, while introducing historical sources, I will examine dissection in Edo from the viewpoint of the Edo Bakufu capital punishment system.

Punishment in the Edo Bakufu

Under the Tokugawa Bakufu, excluding, in the early period, nokogiribiki (decapitation with saw) and the samurai punishment of seppuku/decapitation, capital punishment consisted of: 1. hikimawasu (parading of the criminal in public) and crucifixion 2.crucifixion 3.hikimawasu and gokumon (displaying of the head at prison gate after execution) 4. gokumon 5.burning 6.hikimawasu and death penalty 7.death penalty 8. geshinin (execution with return of body). Among these punishments, leaving aside 1, 2, and 5 (crucifixion and burning), 3, 4, 6, 7, and 8 are all execution by beheading. Hikimawasau and gokumon (exposing of the head) are additional punishments, before or after execution. Only after 8 (geshinin) could the corpse be removed for burial; in other cases after execution the corpse was taken to a burial ground alongside the execution ground at Kozukappara and given a rough funeral. This option was possibly in itself a sort of punishment: under the Edo Bakufu even after death the treatment of a corpse was covered by strict regulations. Because dissection is a dismantling of the corpse, it could be thought to correspond to the ‘dismemberment in 8 pieces’ after execution. However not only does this not appear as a punishment under the Edo Bakufu, it is not seen in our earliest legal system (ritsu) either. So for the Edo Bakufu there was no basis for granting permission either by law or by precedent.
It can be thought that in circumstances when the first dissections did not occur under a direct mandate from the shogun, to begin with, after the okuyuuhitsu had checked for precedents, deliberations would take place at the highest level of the legislative council and the council of elders would put their signatures to the issue of authorization. Or maybe the shogun delivered a direct judgment.
What might have been the basis for a precedent for granting permission for dissection? At that time there was an officially recognised profession of mutilating corpses. It is called otameshigoyou. This is the tameshigiri practised by Executioner Asuemon, the nickname of Yamada Asuemon. In the Osadamegakihyakkajou there is a regulation that confirms the element of mutilation of corpses in the statement “death penalty:decapitation and disposal of the corpse are entrusted to the authorities (the sword tester?), land and property are to be confiscated.
In the prison grounds of Kodenmachou otameshigoyou was attended by various officials including yoriki from the magistrate’s office. It follows that tameshigiri carried out within the prison to test the sharpness of the swords of the shogun’s family also took place. Yamada Asuemon also carried out tameshigiri at the execution ground behind Kozukappara Ekouin. This may have been at the request of daimyou, hatamoto and so on.
If authorization for dissection corresponded to tameshigiri perhaps it was possible to get consent to perform dissections at Kozukappara. Therefore it can be considered that from the beginning dissection was fated to compete with tameshigiri. From the history of the Bakufu it is clear that tameshigiri took precedence.

Tameshigiri and Dissection

In Bunnkyuu 1 (1861) the head of the Bakufu smallpox vaccination centre, Ootsuki Shunsai made a request indicating he would like to dissect two corpses three times in the following year. In that year (2) 113 prisoners were executed and subjected to gokumon. If none was used for dissection the highest number can be attributed to tameshigiri: 113. In comparison, in Houreki 11 (1761) only 12 criminals were subjected to execution and gokumonn. What is the significance of this?
With regards to Yamada Asuemon tameshigiri had the following significance:
1) the continuing existence of his family business -the kenjutsu ryuuha of suemonogiri – and coaching of his pupils
2) his expertise in swords
3) his monopoly on the sale of liver from criminals’ corpses for medicine (human liver pills).
2 and 3 were an important source of income, so much so that it was said he was able to live the lifestyle of high ranking hatamoto, even though he was only a ronin.

So for Asuemon the use of executed corpses for dissection meant a personal loss of income. It’s a rough comparison, but his income in Houreki 11 would have been only a tenth of what it was in Bunkyuu 2. If too many corpses were handed over for dissection it would threaten his lifestyle.
So naturally there was a difference in the understanding of dissection between doctors who saw it as medical research and Bakufu officials who saw it as an additional punishment. The formerly mentioned Otsuki Shunsai had a reply to his submission ‘The Art of Healing and Dissection’: indicating dissection would be treated in the same way as tameshigiri.
If dissection was treated in the same way as tameshigiri, it would become no more than a simple additional form of punishment. Therefore the corpse would not receive a posthumous Buddhist name or a respectful burial.
However in this theory of the same origin for tameshigiri and dissection there is one flaw. In the list of subjects of tameshigiri there are no women. Yet the dissection attended by Sugita Genpaku was that of an old woman called Aochababa. Either the doctors’ desires were overriding or she was excluded from tameshigiri and so was offered for dissection

Conclusion

In 18th century London corpses for education in dissection were offered for sale by grave robbers. If robbers were caught with goods stolen from graves they were sentenced to hanging but the punishment for stealing corpses was only a fine or hard labour. Usually the police were in collusion. In 1752, what was popularly known as the Murder Law authorized the use of corpses for dissection. Two years later in Houreki 4, Yamawaki Touyou et al observed a dissection in Kyoto. At that time because the corpse would be cut up and would not be able to be resurrected on the Last Day, English people it is said were terrified of dissection.

It seems there has not been great discussion or research even in the West on philosophical or religious attitudes to the mutilation of corpses. Hayashi Akihiro introduces us to the thinking of Christian scholar Aurelius Augustinus (354-430) who believed the corpse should not be damaged in the hope of the resurrection of the dead. On the other hand, Rene Descartes (1596-1650) introduced the idea of the separation of mind and body in ‘Passions of the Soul.’

In Tosa domain (Kouchi-ken) the first dissection of a human body occurs quite late in the Bakumatsu period. In Bunkyuu 1 (1861) on the eighth day of the eighth month a man from Takaoka village, Shikatarou, was executed at the domain execution grounds, Nagashiba, and his body obtained for dissection. It is said about 70 doctors attended. At that time apparently one of the doctors cut a piece of Shikatarou’s flesh and ate it with salt. It may be a particularity of Tosa, but that could indicate the perception of the time towards a dead body.

In Meiji 3 (1870) in the Dajoukanfukoku, is the prohibition against the taking of the liver from criminals’ corpses and their use for sword testing. Perhaps this was directed at Yamada Asuemon. The law forbidding the relinquishment of corpses and their mutiliation came in Meiji 40 (1907) In our country into the Showa period newspaper articles referring to the use of some parts of the human body in medicine were still seen here and there.

This writer believes there was no law prohibiting dissection under the Edo Bakufu.

[Tatsunoshi]

Heron, I'm impressed!

Thank for this.

[Jamesdelnero]

so even if the dissection was not prohibited by law in the Edo period, were used only to the bodies of criminals to test their swords and for drugs.

[Owarikenshi]

I knew there was something wrong with those guys from Tosa . . .

Owarikenshi

[heron]

[Tatsunoshi]

I get the same problem-you have to leave a space between the '8' and ')' or you get the Emoticon.

[Bethetsu]

[heron]

[Tatsunoshi]

After having read the whole thing (that being Heron's translation), the part I enjoyed most has nothing to do with the subject at hand. No, rather the amusement at discovering yet another Asano engaging in a crazed and violent personal attack. That's at least three I can think of. It would be not just awesome but kewl indeed if this Asano was somehow related to the one of 47 Ronin infamy, but judging from the han (岡山藩, Okayama, not Okuyama-I think that was one of the few minor errors you made, Heron, and I'm still damn impressed), it doesn't appear as such. Still, there were lots of Asano branch families, and Ako is close to the Okayama han (whether it's the main Ikeda Okayama han in Bizen or the two little ones in Bitchu)...

[heron]

I hadn't made that connection. Maybe there was a strain of violent insanity running through the family -you could probably write a thesis on that. I think Dr Ishide has an eye for lurid characters and plots, what with Yasuzaemon and Executioner Asuemon and the Tosa doctor. Maybe he is also a novelist.
I fixed the typo - thanks - and also got rid of the smiley.

[Tatsunoshi]

[Jamesdelnero]

ultimately the Meiji emperor forbade the removal of organs from criminals in 1870