Kagawa Gen’etsu 賀川玄悅 (Sino-Japanese reading: Hèchuān Xuányuè; zì Shigen / Zǐxuán 子玄), 1700–1777, Edo-period Japanese physician of Kyoto. Born Miura 三浦氏 of the Hikone 彦根 (Ōmi 近江) lineage as the illegitimate son of Miura Nagatomi 長富; expelled from his father’s household at age seven, raised by maternal relatives, became orphaned, and was eventually adopted into another family before relocating to Kyoto as a young man. Originally trained in shinkyū anma (acupuncture-moxibustion-massage) techniques; in Kyoto he extended this to herbal-formula medicine.
The founder of the Kagawa school of Japanese obstetrics (Kagawa-ryū sanka) — one of the great achievements of Tokugawa-period Japanese medicine. The defining moment, recorded by his disciple Shibata Kunihiko in the preface to the Sǎn lùn yì (KR3ei066), is the day a neighbour-woman experienced a difficult labour with the infant’s arm presenting and protruding for days; Gen’etsu’s own innovative manipulations (the so-called huíshēng 回生 (“returning-to-life”) and gōubāo 鉤胞 (“hook-on-the-foetal-membrane”) manoeuvres) saved her, and he developed this into a systematic obstetrical technique.
His central treatise, the Sǎn lùn 產論 (KR3ei062, 1765), is the foundational text of Edo-period obstetrics; the technique was extended and codified by his son-in-law and disciple Okamoto Kishi 岡本起 (= Hèchuān Xuándí 賀川玄迪) in the Sǎn lùn yì 產論翼 (KR3ei066, 1775). The Kagawa school’s contributions include the rejection of the Chinese practice of abdominal binding during pregnancy (zhèndài 鎮帶), the rejection of the labour-chair (chǎnyǐ 產椅), the development of obstetrical hands-on manipulation, and the introduction of the cha-tóu-guǎn 曲頭管 (curved-tip tube) for administering medicine through clenched teeth.
Honoured with a stipendiary appointment by the Hikone domain (han) in 1772 (Meiwa 9). Died in 1777, age 78.
Within the Kanripo corpus: KR3ei062 Sǎn lùn. His son-in-law-disciple’s continuation is KR3ei066 Sǎn lùn yì by 賀川玄迪 (also written 賀川玄迪 with the alternative reading).