Korean books in Japan: from the 1590s to the end of the Edo period (original) (raw)
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A KOREAN BUDDHIST ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT
British Library Journal, 1998
DURING the selection of manuscripts for loan to the 'Arts of Korea' Gallery which opened in the British Museum in July 1997, a richly decorated Korean Buddhist sutra copied in gold pigment around 1390 was identified, conserved and prepared for display. The manuscript seems to have received little attention since it was acquired by the Department of Printed Books of the British Museum in 1884, as part of a collection of important Japanese, Chinese and Korean editions amassed in Japan by the bibliophile Sir Ernest Satow (i 843-1929). It may be surmised that the volume moved to Japan from Korea between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries, perhaps like so many Korean inventions, treasures and skills, leaving Korea in the course of the Hideyoshi invasions of the 1590s. The pioneering French bibliographer Maurice Courant described it in the introduction to Bibliographie Coreenne (1895-1901):
Johns Hopkins University, 2019
In the early twentieth century, Western biomedicine physicians achieved elite status on a global scale as bearers of scientific progress. As part of this process of change in medicine, in many countries traditional medicine healers became marginalized and even obsolete. This dissertation examines the unusual case of the traditional medicine healers in Korea organizing themselves in unprecedented ways within the context of Japanese colonial rule from 1910 to 1945. By following the central theme of Korean agency in "building a new world" via what they then termed Eastern Medicine and Hanbang healing, this study evaluates how elite registered physicians, mainly based in modern-day Seoul (Part one and two), and non-registered physicians, mainly working in rural localities (Part three), actively responded to broader modernizing efforts in the context of Japanese rule by doubling down on the value of their own traditional medical doctrines and practices. The Japanese Government-General introduced a decree on Physician Registration in 1913, hoping to marginalize the "old" Eastern-medicine physicians. Instead of surrendering, the Eastern-medicine physicians organized themselves by forming associations, publishing journals and books, and holding symposia. They made the case for Eastern medicine's continuing relevance and necessity by articulating the need to strengthen Korean bodies and minds with traditional healing therapies. They also framed their arguments by situating Eastern medicine as a key field of knowledge that represented older East Asian cultural resources in general. They preserved and strengthened traditional ideas and practices, such as cultivation of body and mind as healing, attention to regimen, herbal medicine, and ideologies such as Confucianism and iii Buddhism, paradoxically during some of the most oppressive modernizing periods under Japanese rulership. The dissertation also argues that the Eastern-medicine physicians eventually reached a high degree of convergence on shaping healthcare in Korea through a process of negotiation between Korean colonized and Japanese colonizer. This Korean and Japanese convergence, in the crossroads of East Asia, contributed to what was known as an Eastern Medicine Renaissance in the 1930s. At this time the Japanese officially recognized the Eastern-medicine physicians publicly as having elite status. The continued high status of traditional Korean Medicine in modern South Korea can be best understood as the resulting legacy of the collective efforts of these registered urban Eastern-medicine physicians and unregistered rural healers from the first half of the twentieth century.
Motion and Knowledge in the Changing Early Modern World: Orbits, Routes and Vessels, 2014
During the Tokugawa period (1603–1868), Japanese doctors generally learned about the medical ideas of their counterparts elsewhere in East Asia only through the medium of imported books, and there were few circumstances under which they could meet directly with foreigners. The journeys of Korean doctors who travelled to Edo in the entourage of Korean diplomatic embassies thus presented an unusual opportunity to discuss medical topics with doctors from outside Japan who were intimately familiar with traditional forms of East Asian medicine. Japanese doctors hoped to learn from the visiting Koreans about topics ranging from their interpretations of the Chinese medical classics to their methods of processing valuable drugs such as ginseng. However, a divergence between Japanese and Korean medical cultures over the course of the eighteenth century meant that both sides experienced increasing frustration in their attempts to engage in dialogue.
Writing, Authority and Practice in Tokugawa Medicine, 1650-1850
2014
This dissertation examines the history of medical knowledge in Tokugawa Japan through a study of the relationships between medical texts, social institutions and clinical practices. It situates the history of Japanese medicine during this period within its regional and global contexts, analysing Japanese doctors' engagement with ideas and practices drawn from medical cultures in China, Korea, and Europe and showing how these ideas and practices became integrated into the medical cultures of Japan itself. Part One focuses on the written representations of medical knowledge. From the seventeenth century onwards, the medical literature available within Japan came to include more widely accessible texts published in Japanese (kana) as well as texts in classical Chinese (kanbun), but classical Chinese writings remained authoritative. The close philological study of classical Chinese texts became a central problem for practitioners of "Ancient Formulas" (kohō 古方) medicine, and philological forms of evidential argument provided a model for new ways of using the empirical evidence of medical practice.