Xīhuáng zhī Yánjiū 犀黃之研究 / Sai’ō no Kenkyū
Research on Bezoar by 杉本重利 (Sugimoto Shigetoshi 杉本重利, fl. 1920s–30s, 昭和)
About the work
The Xīhuáng zhī yánjiū (the cover title gives 犀黃 xīhuáng — literally “rhinoceros yellow”, a slightly elevated literary variant — but the work consistently treats niúhuáng 牛黃, bezoar / bovine gallstone, the substance Chinese pharmacology has used for over two millennia as a stroke, convulsion, and fever drug). The opening paragraph frames the project: “Niúhuáng in the Chinese pharmacopoeia is from antiquity used as a drug for stopping convulsions, calming agitation, expelling wind, clearing fever, detoxifying, or as a longevity drug. Recently the biological-science research on bile has advanced rapidly, with consequent interest in bile-stones. Since it has become clear that bile has hematopoietic function, Researcher Hashimoto investigated this function in niúhuáng and discovered an immunological action; subsequently Researcher Imai examined niúhuáng and found similar immunological effects. The ancient niúhuáng of Chinese drug-tradition has therefore turned out, in modern therapeutic terms, to have demonstrable effect.”
The work systematically covers: (1) source biology (gallbladder pathology of cattle, the formation of biliary calculi, the niúhuáng commercial grades), (2) chemistry (cholic-acid derivatives, bilirubin, calcium salts), (3) experimental pharmacology (the immunological-stimulating action documented by Sugimoto’s own and earlier Japanese laboratory studies), and (4) the relation of niúhuáng to its synthetic substitutes (the early-20th-c. interest in niúhuáng-substitutes for the commercial pharmaceutical market). The work is in the same Shōwa-period Japanese laboratory-pharmacological tradition as Mineshita’s 峰下鐵雄 Lùróng zhī yánjiū (KR3ec081).
Prefaces
The local repository preserves the substance body. The frontmatter file is present and includes Sugimoto’s introductory chapter (緒論).
Abstract
Sugimoto Shigetoshi (杉本重利, fl. 1920s–30s, no confident CBDB id), Japanese pharmacologist. See his person note.
The work’s significance is as one of the principal early-Shōwa Japanese laboratory-pharmacological monographs on a major Chinese drug. Niúhuáng was one of the highest-value substances in the Chinese pharmacopoeia and the principal active ingredient of major emergency preparations (Niúhuáng Qīngxīn Wán 牛黃清心丸 etc.); its laboratory investigation was therefore both pharmacologically and commercially significant. Sugimoto’s work documents the convergence of Chinese traditional pharmacology with modern Western biochemistry around bile-derived therapeutics — a convergence that has remained productive into the present, with the modern Korean and Chinese cultured-bezoar (rénzào niúhuáng 人造牛黃) industries.
Translations and research
- No modern critical edition; no Western-language translation.
Links
- Wikidata: not yet assigned.
- 犀黃之研究 jicheng.tw
- Kanseki DB