It has an extensive
literature, largely based upon the Chinese, and extending as far back as
the beginning of the Christian era. European medicine was introduced by
the Portuguese and the Dutch, whose "factory" or "company" physicians
were not without influence upon practice. An extraordinary stimulus was
given to the belief in European medicine by a dissection made by
Mayeno in 1771 demonstrating the position of the organs as shown in
the European anatomical tables, and proving the Chinese figures to be
incorrect. The next day a translation into Japanese of the anatomical
work of Kulmus was begun, and from its appearance in 1773 may be dated
the commencement of reforms in medicine. In 1793, the work of de Gorter
on internal medicine was translated, and it is interesting to know that
before the so-called "opening of Japan" many European works on medicine
had been published. In 1857, a Dutch medical school was started in Yedo.
Since the political upheaval in 1868, Japan has made rapid progress in
scientific medicine, and its institutions and teachers are now among the
best known in the world.(28)
(28) See Y. Fujikawa, Geschichte der Medizin in Japan,
Tokyo, 1911.
CHAPTER II -- GREEK MEDICINE
OGRAIAE gentis decus! let us sing with Lucretius, one of the great
interpreters of Greek thought.
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