Ｕ．Ｓ． Ｎａｔｉｏｎａｌ Ｌｉｂｒａｒｙ ｏｆ Ｍｅｄｉｃｉｎｅ蔵書日本古医書整理開始の経緯

Abstract

It is a privilege to report on the “Classics of Japanese Medicine Project” currently underway within the History of Medicine Division (HMD) of the U. S. National Library of Medicine (NLM). Upon viewing 19 manuscripts related to the works of Seishu Hanaoka, who was a pioneer in surgery who used his own method of anesthesia and a character in the novel “Hanaoka Seishu no Tsuma” by Sawako Ariyoshi, and discovering other important Japanese medical classics at NLM, the author felt obliged to have them made available to scholars and open to the public. These Japanese medical classics at NLM have been buried in basement stacks for many years without proper cataloging. About 6-700 items had only brief card catalogs with titles, author names and publication years. 2-300 have had records consisting only of a list of titles. Others have brief records in the NLM electronic database. Over all the total citations may add up to 1900-2000 items. These include printed publications, manuscripts, woodblock prints, advertisement prints, and early Meiji periodicals. Fortunately, all these materials were carefully stored in a well-controlled environment thanks to the knowledgeable NLM staff. The “Classics of Japanese Medicine Project” was proposed and the funding started in fiscal year 2001. The proposal consisted of not only cataloging the Japanese classics but of conserving materials (repair and restoration), preserving (microfilming or image capturing) them, and digitizing them on the World Wide Web. NLM invited Dr. Shizu Sakai of Juntendo University School of Medicine in Tokyo to serve as a medical historian consultant for the project. Dr. Sakai started her research for the project in the fall of 2001, and has been identifying many very important historically significant and rare materials. The NLM has made a commitment to make the collection of the Japanese medical classic, available to the public in the very near future.