Lùróng zhī yánjiū 鹿茸之研究
A Study of Deer-Antler Velvet (Lùróng) by 峰下鐵雄 (撰)
About the work
The Lùróng zhī yánjiū 鹿茸之研究 (Japanese Rokujō no kenkyū), 1 juàn, is a detailed historical-pharmacological monograph on deer-antler velvet (lùróng 鹿茸) by the early-Shōwa Japanese pharmacological researcher 峰下鐵雄 Mineshita Tetsuo 峰下鐵雄, active in the colonial-pharmacological apparatus surrounding the South Manchurian Railway and related Japanese institutions in northeast China. The work is independently catalogued in the hxwd series as KR3ec081 in the present knowledgebase.
Abstract
The author’s xùyán 緒言 (introduction) frames the work’s question: lùróng is, with rénshēn 人參 (ginseng), one of the two highest-prestige substances of the East Asian materia medica — “in the Chinese drug stores even today the signboard reads shēnróng” (ginseng-and-antler) — and yet the substance’s pharmacological action, identity, and chemical constituents have not been systematically studied. The book is presented as a beginning of that study.
The structure is six chapters plus a summary:
- 緒言 Introduction — methodological framing.
- 鹿茸之定義 Definition of lùróng — a survey of the substance’s identification through the canonical Chinese pharmacognosy: Bàopǔzǐ 抱朴子, Tújīng běncǎo 圖經本草, Běncǎo yǎnyì 本草衍義, Běncǎo bèiyào 本草備要. Definition: the unossified soft horn of a young male deer, still containing blood and marrow, harvested in spring at the time of antler-shedding. Mineshita reports the contemporary northeast-Asian market distinction between 花鹿 huālù (the spotted deer, Cervus mantchuricus Swinhoe, Japanese Manshū-shika) yielding high-grade antler at 100+ silver yuan per liǎng, and 馬鹿 mǎlù (the wapiti, Cervus xanthopygus Milne-Edwards) yielding low-grade at 2–3 yuan. The taxonomic and historical-geographical investigation of lù vs. mí 麋 (Père David’s deer, Cervus davidianus Milne-Edwards) is the core of the chapter, with a careful demonstration that the Sòng-Confucian Lǐjì / Yuèlìng-based debate (Shěn Kuò’s bǔ yáng / bǔ yīn contrast between lùróng and míróng) is a doctrinal artefact and that the pre-Sòng pharmacognostic tradition used the two species interchangeably.
- 鹿茸之應用 Therapeutic application — historical-clinical survey of the substance’s use across the Chinese medical literature, divided into pre-Táng (the Shénnóng běncǎo jīng, Míngyī biélù, Bàopǔzǐ, the Hou Hàn shū-era applications), Táng (the Yàoxìng lùn of 甄權 Zhēn Quán, the Qiānjīn fāng with 23 formulae, the Qiānjīn yìfāng with 10, the Wàitái mìyào with 22), Sòng (Sānyīn fāng with 10, Běnshì fāng with 5, Héjì jú fāng with 8, the imperial-commission Shèngjì zǒnglù with 155+ formulae of which 53 use antler as principal substance), and the post-Sòng tradition. Tabulated breakdowns by therapeutic category (tonification, abnormal uterine bleeding, leucorrhoea, frequent urination, blood-in-urine, exhaustion-syndromes, dermatology) and by galenical form (powder, pill, decoction) are given for each period.
- 鹿茸之藥理 Pharmacology — a critical historical survey of the doctrinal-pharmacological theorising about deer-antler from the early fāngshì Daoist-immortality tradition (the deer as 仙獸 xiānshòu / 陽獸 yángshòu, conferring longevity) through the Hàn “yáng-supplements-yáng” doctrine, the Sòng-Confucian yīnyáng dispute, the Míng kǎojù (Miào Xīyōng 繆希雍, Liú Ruòjīn 劉若金), and the Qīng yīzhě commentaries (Zhāng Lù 張璐, Zhāng Yǐnān 張陰庵, 葉桂 Yè Tiānshì, 陳念祖 Chén Niànzǔ / Xiūyuán 修園). Mineshita’s verdict is unflinching: the entire pharmacological-theoretical literature is “kōnglǐ kōnglùn — empty principle, empty discourse” — and the real question must be answered by modern chemical analysis, which is the implicit programme of the rest of the hxwd-series scientific-pharmacological investigations.
- 鹿茸之調製法 Preparation methods — comparative survey of the inherited drying, roasting, and adjuvant-coating methods (羊脂 sheep-fat, 酥 cream, 醋 vinegar, 酒 wine, etc.) from Táo Hóngjǐng’s Míngyī biélù through Léi Xiào 雷斅, the Sānyīn fāng, the Héjì jú fāng, the Běncǎo yǎnyì, the Běncǎo gāngmù, to contemporary Chinese pharmacy practice (sliced 2–5 mm thin, secret-recipe adjuvant treatment retained by individual pharmacies).
- 總括 Summary — a seven-point synthesis.
The Latin binomials and the Japanese pharmacognosist Kimura Kōichi 木村康一 (whose head-notes to the Kokuyaku Honzō Kōmoku 國譯本草綱目 are cited at multiple points) firmly date the work to the inter-war Manchurian pharmacognosy programme of the late 1920s and early 1930s, with publication via the Shanghai HuángHàn yīxué cóngshū 皇漢醫學叢書 (Shanghai: Shìjiè Shūjú, 1936), ed. Chén Cúnrén 陳存仁.
Translations and research
No substantial Western-language scholarship of the work specifically located.
- Sherman, Sandra. 2007. The Velvet Antler Revolution. Wenatchee, WA: Dragon Door — modern popular pharmacology of deer antler, post-dating Mineshita’s work but using the same substance.
- Liu Jianzhao 劉建昭 et al. 1994. “Pharmacology of Pilose Antler.” Chinese Journal of Pharmacology and Toxicology 8 (4): 281–4 — modern Chinese pharmacological summary descending from Mineshita’s research-line.
- Karow, Otto. 1968. Bibliographie zur ostasiatischen Pharmazie und Pharmakologie. Wiesbaden: Steiner — bibliographic context.
Other points of interest
The work is one of the principal artefacts of the 1930s Japanese colonial-Manchurian pharmacological research programme: the deer-antler trade between Manchuria (the principal supply zone) and the south-China consumer markets was a sufficiently important economic flow to attract sustained Japanese laboratory-pharmacological attention, both for export (to Japanese kanpō practice and the Republican Chinese market) and for the substance’s clinical re-evaluation. Mineshita’s historical-philological method — survey the entire received pharmacognostic tradition, identify the inherited claims, then submit those claims to modern chemical and physiological investigation — is characteristic of the inter-war Japanese pharmacology-of-Chinese-medicine programme, of which the present hxwd-series publication is one product.