Kagakushi kenkyu. [Journal of the history of science, Japan最新文献

Isaac Beeckman (1588-1637) is a self-learning man. He learned medicine by his reading medical books (contemporary and classic). In this paper I study how Beeckman read and understood them. He did not merely memorize them. But he gave some supplementary explanations to their (he thought) insufficient passages, sometimes criticized them and gave mechanical explanation that was based on atomism with hydrostatics. We can find similar ways of reading in the works of Lucretius and Cardano which young Beeckman read repeatedly. Beeckman learned the way of explaining natural phenomena with atomism from Lucretius' De rerum natura, and the way of explaining mechanics with natural philosophy and of demonstrating the principles of natural philosophy with machines from Cardano's De subtilitate. Beeckman's interactive reading is a good style of self-learning, but to avoid some bad effects of self-learning, he had to talk actually to a good respondent such as young Descartes.

The Hippocratic treatise De Vetere Medicina (On Ancient Medicine) has been the focus of attention among classical scholars and historians of medicine. The author attacks in ch. 20 doctors and sophists who base their own medical theories and methods on philosophical anthropology taken from the contemporary natural philosophers. Many attempts have been made to elucidate, as opposed to their philosophical inquiry into human nature, the author's way of understanding it, which still remains unclear. I draw attention to the following points to make it clear that the conceptual framework of the author's medical anthropology is different from theirs. Their philosophical inquiry into human nature has its starting point in fundamental element(s), from which human beings were originally formed. The author focuses on human beings as existent in their present states, whose conditions and functions must be investigated through interrelations between them and their external factors, such as foods and drinks. A medical investigation into the interrelations will give us a scientific idea about human body, whose constituents are taken to be a large number of humors, reacting against some external factors and accordingly making us feel pain. This may presuppose that, in the author's medical anthropology, human body is conceptually demarcated as the physical or material aspect of human being, within which all physiological events depending on external factors and the humors take place. In their philosophical anthropology, however, human body doesn't seem to have been clearly conceptualized as such, because our experience of feeling pain should be judged to take place within the actions of the fundamental element(s), which must be supposed to constitute our cognitive self.

The Hippocratic treatise De Natura Hominis (On the Nature of Man) has been very influential in the history of western medical thought from antiquity, because it argues the theory of four humors as the essential constituents of human body. There has been a traditional view on the theory among scholars that the author Polybos referred to Empedocles' philosophical doctrine of four elements as a model in the formation of the humoral physiology of his own. However, the theory of four humors, as compared with the doctrine of four elements, turns out to be different on the following points. 1) The four elements are introduced as substantial entities, which always remain self-identical, whereas the four humors change into one another, according to the degree of the four elemental qualities (Hot and Cold, Humid and Dry), which constitute their own nature. 2) In the Empedoclean doctrine, human nature comes into being emergently from the four elements, when they come together, or when they separate out of their primordial lump. In NH, the generation process seems to be dependent on human nature, which exists as the determinant of the conditions under which the generation can take place. 3) The Empedoclean cosmic cycle functions as a structural framework, within which the generation takes place. The cosmic system in NH has its own purpose of giving a causal explanation about how the four humors increase and decrease reciprocally in the human body, according to the alternation of the four seasons. These results will make us suppose that the philosophical influences of Empedocles on the theory of four humors remained within a very limited scope, although there are traces in some phrases and sentences as well as forms of argumentation in NH, which may be judged to be a reflection of the Empedoclean philosophical poems.

It has often been claimed the Greek medical science has its origin in the rational explanation of the world among the early Greek philosophers that constituted their inquiry into nature. However, there were doctors who made an attempt to establish medical science as existing independently of any philosophical intrusion. This can be elucidated through the analysis of the medical term physis, conceptualized, among others, in the well-known treatise in the Hippocratic Corpus, entitled De Natura Hominis (NH). In NH, the Hippocratic doctor criticizes the philosophical anthropology and medical theory, which hold that human nature comes into being emergently from single elemental stuff such as Air, Water etc, or from a single humor. His own view of human nature claims that the four humors (blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile) constitute the nature (physis) of human body. The human body has its natural powers inherently for preserving health, and, if anything does harm to it, it functions autonomously for restoring its normal condition. In this context, the term physis denotes what determines the normality of the body, in which its humoral constituents remain harmonized with each other. THrough the conception of physis, applied principally to the body, the human body will be demarcated as the physical or material aspect of human nature, as opposed to the monistic view of human nature, which has not drawn a categorical distinction between the material and the non-material.

This paper analyzes the development and use of visual tools known as "family trees" that allow medical practitioners to see hereditary family diseases. Family trees, consisting of family names and a tree diagram on personal traits, became popular among neurologists during the late 19th century. However, social scientists have devoted only scant attention to the historical and social processes through which, before the rediscovery of Mendelian laws, medical practitioners came to use family trees as scientific devices for nosographical classification of hereditary diseases, such as hereditary chorea (one of the initial terms used to describe Huntington's disease). The purpose of this paper is to trace the complex processes by which family histories, namely the descriptive nosography of family members and family trees became distinct during the late 19th century. This paper argues that family trees of hereditary chorea became and important clinical tool, with the establishment of teaching hospitals, although, in the case of hereditary chorea, family trees were used to support different interpretations of the notion of heredity. The use of family trees was made possible by three conditions including the centralization of medical care, the standardization of medical records, and the circulation of medical information among medical practitioners.

We demonstrate in this paper how scientists in the 19th century did researches on the nervous system; some scientists tried to make the nature of "nerve impulse" clear only to fail, while others chose to investigate how the nervous system works, leaving the nature of the impulse unknown. A. Mosso and H. D. Rolleston, for example, attempted to detect heat produced in nerves with a view to elucidating the nature of the impulse. The heat, they believed, would suggest that "nerve impulse" was nothing but "a wave of chemical reaction" or "a wave of molecular vibration." On the other hand, C. S. Sherrington who introduced the term synapsis in 1897 to refer to the special connection between nerve cells--special in the sense it offers an opportunity for "nerve impulse" to change in its nature--refrained from examining the nature of the impulse. He believed that it was impossible for science at the time to elucidate the nature. He, therefore, focused his attention to reactions of muscles in an animal caused when various stimulations were applied on animal's skin in a remote area from the muscles. He did not probe into the working of the nerves running between the part where stimulation was given and the part where corresponding reaction occurred. He pursued his studies by using phenomenalistic approach. We call his approach "phenomenalistic" because his research focused only on contradictions of muscles easily seen without probing into minute arrangement in a body. Gotch and Horsley, like Sherrington, did not argue about the nature of "nerve impulse." But unlike Sherrington, they made experiments with electrical changes produced in nerves or a spinal cord, based on the idea that "nerve impulse" should accompany certain electrical changes. Making use of their electrical method effectively, they obtained a series of quantitative data as to the electrical changes. The data they collected allowed them to explore distribution of nerves deep in a body and even led them to contemplate the existence of "field of conjunction" in a spinal cord. They introduced the concept to explain decrease in quantity and delay in transmission time of the electrical change, which was observed when a nerve impulse traversed a certain part of the spinal cord. This idea was considerably similar to "synapse" introduced six years later by Sherrington.

Sanki Tashiro and Dosan Manase are known for their role as founders of the Gosei-ha school in Japan. Observing that Japanese medicine had not been based on a clear theory, they introduced into Japan the satsusho benchi practiced in Chinese medicine during the Jin and Yuan dynasties. The basis of this system was to examine the patient's condition, then determine the treatment accordingly. Dosan Manase in particular employed the satsusho benchi, writing out a new prescription each time treatment was required, without reference to existing prescriptions. In this study, we carried out an investigation into the "Ishin shoden"edited by Dosan Manase, which reveals the process by which Dosan established the new satusho benchi system of medicine within the framework of traditional Japanese medicine. In the early stages of the process, Dosan prepared prescriptions based on existing iou-tou prescriptions, modifying these by adding or removing medicines. Then, in the middle period, he prepared prescriptions based on toso-tou prescriptions, designed on the basis of the kun shin sa shi or Junchen Zuoshi theory, again modifying these by adding or removing medicines. In the final stage of the process, Dosan ceased this practice of adding or removing medicines from a basic prescription, adopting instead the satusho benchi system of writing out a new prescription for every treatment. In addition, we consider the reasons why the satusho benchi system was not employed by Dosan's successors, and discuss the effects of this.