MS Japanese 118

A woodblock printed manual on the care of young infants based on lectures given by Hazama Sōgen and written down by four of his followers, published in 1817. The text is in hiragana-majiri with extensive furigana, but all the prefatory material including the introduction is in kanbun with no kunten. In a section on childhood palsy Hazama quotes at length from Yi xue yuan liu lun (醫學源流論), a study of the origins of medicine by Xu Dachun (徐大椿) (1693-1771), adding kunten to the original Chinese text. Also included is an illustration of a child with hydrocephalus and some of Hazama’s written diagnoses in his own hand, which are reproduced in the form of a negative (white text on a black background).

Japan, 1817

Material: paper; ２冊 | 2 volumes; binding dimensions: height 269mm, width 189mm, depth 22mm