↧
Syphilis and seiseinyū: manufacturing a mercurial drug in early modern Japan
Syphilis arrived in Japan in the early sixteenth century and spread rapidly through the country. The symptoms of the disease were severe but there was no truly effective treatment, and many patients...
View ArticleSeiseinyū and secrets: problems of recipe attribution in early modern Japan
In my last post, I looked at the problems faced by early modern Japanese doctors trying to figure out how to manufacture a new mercurial drug called seiseinyū, which had first appeared in the Chinese...
View ArticleWas there a recipe for Korean ginseng?
By Daniel Trambaiolo Ginseng, one of the best known drugs of the East Asian herbal tradition, can be purchased today almost anywhere in the world, but in the early modern period its availability was...
View Article