Zhōngguó érkē yījiàn 中國兒科醫鑑
Mirror of Chinese Paediatric Medicine by 大塜敬節 Ōtsuka Keisetsu (撰)
About the work
A twentieth-century Japanese-authored Chinese-paediatric clinical handbook by 大塚敬節 Ōtsuka Keisetsu (1900–1980; the catalog spelling 大塜敬節 uses the variant character 塜 for 塚), the most influential twentieth-century Japanese kanpō 漢方 physician. The work presents Chinese paediatric tradition for modern Japanese clinical practitioners, integrating kobō-ha (Classical Formulas School) doctrine with modern Western-medical clinical paediatric knowledge. The work is organised by disease category in a recognisably modern medical textbook format. It is the latest-dated paediatric work in the KR3ej division and reflects the modern Sino-Japanese kanpō clinical synthesis.
Prefaces
The received text opens directly with the substantive content (Dì yī zhāng Mázhěn 第一章 麻疹, “Chapter 1: Measles”). No author’s preface is preserved.
Abstract
The opening chapter — Dì yī zhāng Mázhěn 第一章 麻疹 (Chapter 1: Measles) — is methodologically distinctive: Ōtsuka presents the modern Western-medical pathogenesis of measles (10–11 day incubation period, the Koplik’s spots / Kèpǔlìzǐkū shì bān 克蒲利子枯氏斑 pathognomonic finding on the buccal mucosa, the catarrhal-prodromal-eruptive-recovery clinical phases, conventional temperature ranges in Celsius) alongside the traditional Chinese-medical zhèngzhì paediatric measles doctrine. The chapter integrates the xīyī 西醫 (Western-medical) understanding of the disease with the zhōngyī 中醫 (Chinese-medical) prescription tradition (the standard measles formulary Shēngmá gégēn tāng 升麻葛根湯, Yínqiào sǎn 銀翹散, Sāngjú yǐn 桑菊飲, and the modifications of the 陳文中 Chén Wénzhōng and post-Qián Yǐ paediatric traditions). The work’s mid-twentieth-century date is established by the modern medical vocabulary (potassium, sodium, body temperature in Celsius, microbiological infection-period reasoning) and the recognisably Western-medical structural organisation of each chapter.
Translations and research
- Yumoto Kyūshin’s Kōkan igakuyō 皇漢醫學要 (The Essentials of Imperial-Han Medicine) — Ōtsuka’s teacher’s foundational text for modern Japanese kanpō.
- Hayashi Itaru, Kanpō no rinshō 漢方の臨床 (Clinical Kanpō) journal — Ōtsuka was a principal contributor across decades.
- Volker Scheid, Chinese Medicine in Contemporary China: Plurality and Synthesis. Durham NC: Duke UP, 2002 — context for the post-war East Asian TCM synthesis.
- Mathias Vigouroux et al., Sino-Japanese medical history scholarship — context.
Other points of interest
The work is the latest-dated paediatric text in the KR3ej division and is the only one whose dating reflects the post-Meiji / Republican-period Sino-Japanese medical-cultural exchange. The catalog meta records no dynasty for this entry; the 昭和 / Mínguó designation is appropriate for the modern East Asian dating framework.