Fine Japanese Works of Art
Fine Japanese Works of Art
Property from a Collection
Anonymous | Divine Work on Ten Medicines (Juyaku shinsho) | Edo period, late 17th century
Lot Closed
September 29, 02:04 PM GMT
Estimate
800 - 1,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
Property from a Collection
Attributed to Ge Gansun (1305-53)
Divine Work on Ten Medicines (Juyaku shinsho)
Edo period, late 17th century
woodblock printed book (ehon), fukurotoji-bon, no colophon, postscript dated Genroku tsuchinoto mi rokugatsu (6th month, 1689), 1 vol., in two parts, in original blue paper wrappers, paper title slip titled as above, later modern blue cloth folder; contents: 36 leaves, numbered on the hashira, preface 1-2, 6 columns per page, 13 characters per column, text 1-33, 9 columns per page, 19 characters per column, 4 double-page illustrations, two single-page illustrations, several interspersed illustrations depicting parasitic worms, unnumbered postscript
Obon: 25 x 17.5 cm., 9⅞ x 6⅛ in.
Attributed to the Chinese Yuan dynasty writer and physician Ge Qiansun, also known as Kejiu, the Juyaku shinsho is thought to be the first medical treatise on pulmonary tuberculosis. Comprised of two sections, the first part compiles the use of ten different vegetal-based medicines effective in the treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis. The second part describes the parasitic worms thought to grow in the intestines of patients suffering from the disease. The Japanese reading marks that appear alongside some of the Chinese characters are the work of the doctor Shuhaku Asai (1643-1705), who worked on revising the text for domestic readership.
For an example of a slightly later edition published in 1690 in the collection of the Kyoto University Library, object number RB00002994, go to: