Chiun [or Chion] hen [Treatment of Pestilence]

35; 18 folding leaves. Two vols. 8vo, orig. aubergine patterned wrappers, orig. block-printed title labels on upper covers, new stitching. Edo, Kyoto, & Osaka: various publishers, Prefaces dated 1859, Afterwords dated 1860.


First edition of this very rare work on epidemics and communicable diseases. “Koretsune or Ritsuen or Sohaku Asada (1813-1894) was a famous physician and a prolific writer on a variety of subjects in Japanese medicine…Asada began the study of medicine at the age of 13, soon coming under the influence of old Chinese physicians in Kyoto, a circumstance which was to have a powerful effect on his later life. At the peak of his career he was summoned to the court of the Shogun where he was ‘retained’ as one of the most skilful physicians in Japan. Because of his early training, Asada and also Dohaku Mori were known as ‘resistors’ of Western medicine, that is to say they were the foremost physicians of the On-Chi-Sha, the contemporary Chinese school of medicine in Japan.”–Mestler, “A Galaxy of Old Japanese Medical Books,” III, p. 130.


Fine set.


❧ Our set has the same contents — Chiun hen, Chiun hen ho, and Keii kiji — as one of the sets at Kyoto University (ID: RB00004079). Further volumes, each independently published, were issued through 1880.