Japanese Surgery and Medicine

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXII, Issue 44, 3 November 1904, Page 29

Japanese Surgery and Medicine

Down to the date of their recent severance of the bonds of Oriental conservatism, the Japanese (says the Dublin ' Freeman's Journal '), like their neighbors of the vast Celestial Empire, "were decidedly peculiar— from the European point of view— in their notions of the theory and practice of the art ol healing. In the department of medicine they practised largely, and with very considerable variation as to means and metihqd ; but m that of surgery, their range was exceedingly limited. Their chirurgical armamentarium, like that of* their Chinese neighbors, consisted almost solely— if not wholly— of the needle and the cautery. The ' acupuncture needle ' was invade to penetrate the skin at ceitayi prose nbe-d points, in the treatment ot the most \ anous diseases ; liom oholera, dysentery, and the ' endemic colic ' of the country, down to the most tmial local rheumatic or neuralgic pains A candidate for a diploma in surgery was placed, needle in hand, before a bion/e ■Tiuwinikin, on it he surface of which the recognised therapeutic points were indicated by small holes ' This mannil.in was diaped with pa,per, through which he was requnod to ponetiate the masked ounces when a certain disease was named Accuracy of aim was, of course, an infallible testimony of the requisite skill. The cautery was applied m the form of a cylinder, or cone, made of ceitain highly inilammable \egetab!e products— lea\es or pith— rollod into conical or cylindrical form, and placod on the skni over tine afiecteid region This was set on fire at the apex, and allowed to bum itself out Theii Medical Practitioners were also druggists and botanists Each was accompanied in his louncls by an attendant, who bore a sma'l thest in which vveie twelve diaweis Each of the latter was furni ,lunl with 11! compai tments, containing herbs aTid diugs \ftei examining the patient, the medical adviser 'selected the lequisite remedies fiom this reset - voir, and piepated and mnißled them ' secuinldum aitem ' Their science of the puKe was the most complex of any known to medical lnstoi v — except, penhaps, that of then Chinese nemhbov- \n examination oi the pulse lequited Eullv half jn hour, at 1 lie conclusw n of whuh the doctor mole^sed to Know all the conditions and the causes of the mala.lv \s a l ule tliev used but few remedies. They ne\c-i let blood They ga\e the patient none of the oidmai\ cooled form ol diet — on thegiound that the sitmacl. m disease w.is unable to digest anything suitable In the healthy state Otherwise, t he\ gave the smK, as iai .is possible, what they wished loi , rehinj; on t he* \ iew that no lin o was ah\a\s the vilest advisei, and newer demande-d what was likely to be Inn Iful to the constitution The ccte.it object of their practice v <as Uhe prevention of disease, and io this they believed that noihn.g contributed more eilccthely than The Frequent Fsc of the Rath There weie tjhiee \anetics of smallpox recognised in Japanese piacticc T'lie first corresponded to the disease known in Europe by that name, the second appears to h<n-e been ideniical with our measles ;. the thud was a sipccial endemic disease of the country, characterised by an eruption of watery pustules, and which the fa moms .Jesuit, Pere de Charlevoix, Was disposed to attribute to the excessive use of cold drinks by the Japanese None ot the varieties appear, however, to have been regarded as a very fatal disease Dr Koempfer, the early Japanese medical explorer, tells us that the only treatment considered necessary was to envelon the patient in cloths of a red color Tie also state-, that when one of the family of the Emperor vas at-taok-ed by smallnox, not only was his bed and the walls of the bedchamber curtained with ted, but all the attendants wore obliged to wear srarments of the same hi c Such practice, which was declared to be of untold antiquity, form? an interesting anticipation indeed of the experimental practice of the English John of Oaddesden, ii.rjd its recent resuscitation, on the most scientific grounds, by tfome European and American physicians '

What scientific physician, even in the opening years of this ultra-scientific twentieth century, can be absolutely sure that he has advanced a really new discovery?