Antall József szerk.: Pictures from the Past of the Healing Arts / Orvostörténeti Közlemények – Supplementum 5. (Budapest, 1972)

Pictures from the Past of the Healing Arts (Guide for the Exhibition)

XIV. MEDICAL RELICS OF JAPAN AND THE FAR EAST The progress of medicine in the Far East had been isolated up to the middle of the 19th century. This, in addition to the geographical potentiality, in a great part was due to religious and political reasons. The Far-Eastern material should have been placed at an earlier part of the chronological order of the exhibition, but it had not been so because this region became accessible and known for Europe only as late as the second half of the 19th century. A special product of the history of medical arts and crafts of Japan is the inró. This is a medicine case made up of one or more compartments, its form and closing device being determined by the clothing peculiarity that the kimono had no pocket only a belt. The inro is usually made of Japaned wood inlayed with pearl or guilded japan thrown into relief with lac of different colour. From among the motives decorating the sidepiece of the telescoping compartments, the landscapes and figura representations are the most interesting. The safety string is usually fastened, closed and connected to the belt by an ivory or steatite carving (netsuke). The inrós possessed by the museum date back to the 18th and 19th centuries. (Plate XVII.). We exhibit an early 19th century salve-box made up of telescoping compartments and a genuine Chinese "secret" instrument used for healing purposes. Above the show-case there is a coloured print of a Japanese engraving entitled "Instructions for Fathers and MothersIt shows the ten months of gestation according to the lunar year, and the monthly changing presentation of the foetus. The flowers and medicinal plants in the mother's hand refer to the infusion of herbs proposed for the month concerned. Here is a leaflet on view from Osaka in the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries: it is a fly-bill of an itinerant healer, reading pieces of advice against illnesses and offering his preparations.