The Japanese History of Medicine Collection at the

National Library of Medicine

Michael J. North

March 26, 2003

The National Library of Medicine (NLM)

Bethesda, Maryland Founded 1836 as Library of the U.S.

Army Surgeon General Part of National Institutes of Health

(NIH) Mission: To collect medical information

from all over the world in all formats Over 6 million volumes

History of Medicine Division (HMD)

All monographs published before 1914

All serials before 1870

Manuscripts & Archival Collections

Prints, photographs and audiovisuals

Historical Japanese Collection

800 books separately shelved

800 books shelved in regular stacks

300 miscellaneous items- prints, photographs, ephemera, scrolls, etc.

Goals for the Collection

Evaluation

Cataloging

Preservation

Microfilming

Evaluation

What types of materials are there?

When were they created?

Is it an historically significant collection?

How did we acquire it?

Historical Consultant

Shizu Sakai, M.D., Ph.D.

Professor Emerita, Department of Medical History, Juntendo University, Tokyo

Contributing Editor, Kokusho somokuroku

Material Types

70% printed books 20% manuscripts 10% miscellaneous: prints, photographs,

ephemera, scrolls

Dating from 1495 to 1945 1,000 pre-Meiji Period items

Scholarly Significance?

Entire range of Japanese knowledge of healing, health, and disease

Intermingling of Japanese traditions with other Eastern and Western traditions

High points in medical publishing

Unrecorded and unique texts

Autograph Letters, Edo Period

Haremono no zu (1576)

Sakurakawa Teizō. Daikei shikimyaku shishin yomon (1798)

Hanaoka Seishū. Selected Surgical Procedures (ca. 1810)

Hanaoka Seishū.

Hanaoka Seishū.

Jushi-kyo. (Kyoto, ca. 1700)

Jushi-kyo. (Kyoto, ca. 1700)

Johann Kulmus. Kaitai shinsho (Edo, 1774)

Kaitai shinsho.