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Blind in Early Modern Japan: Disability, Medicine, and Identity
Wei Yu Wayne Tan
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While the loss of sight—whether in early modern Japan or now—may be understood as a disability, blind people in the Tokugawa period (1600–1868) could thrive because of disability. The blind of the era were prominent across a wide range of professions, and through a strong guild structure were able to exert contractual monopolies over certain trades. Blind in Early Modern Japan illustrates the breadth and depth of those occupations, the power and respect that accrued to the guild members, and the lasting legacy of the Tokugawa guilds into the current moment.
The book illustrates why disability must be assessed within a particular society's social, political, and medical context, and also the importance of bringing medical history into conversation with cultural history. A Euro-American-centric disability studies perspective that focuses on disability and oppression, the author contends, risks overlooking the unique situation in a non-Western society like Japan in which disability was constructed to enhance blind people's power. He explores what it meant to be blind in Japan at that time, and what it says about current frameworks for understanding disability.
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
List of Illustrations
Abbreviated List of Historical Periods
A Note on Japanese Terminology and Names
Acknowledgments
Preface
Introduction
Chapter 1. Japanese Ophthalmology
Chapter 2. Eye Medicines
Chapter 3. The Blind Guild
Chapter 4. Nonmembership and the Challenge of Authority
Fig. 1.1. Pages from a medical text including an image of the “five spheres” of the eyes. From Secret Records: The Dawn of Eye Treatments (a Majima text by Majima Daikōbō; Japanese title: Ganryō tōun hiroku). Main Library, Kyoto University Rare Materials Digital Archive.
Fig. 1.2. Pages from a medical text depicting the “eight boundaries” of the eyes. From Secret Records: The Dawn of Eye Treatments (a Majima text by Majima Daikōbō; Japanese title: Ganryō tōun hiroku). Main Library, Kyoto University Rare Materials Digital Archive.
Fig. 1.3. Pages from a medical text. Left: A view of one dissected eye (according to the interpretations of Dutch-method medicine). Right: Views of eyelids and tear ducts. Compared with traditional Japanese renditions of the “five spheres” and “eight boundaries,” the eye depicted here has a well-defined spherical shape and a solid form. For this reason, the eye is called an “eyeball.” It is drawn with details organized around the emergent truths of dissection discussed in European texts (and oriented around the pivot of anatomical science), emphasizing a new materiality. The image shows six major tendons connecting the eye to the orbit. The seventh extension is described as a nerve conduit. The bluish matter of the eye is labeled as the “white membrane” (which appears to be the sclera). From Sugita Ryūkei, A New Treatise on Ophthalmology (Japanese title: Ganka shinsho), 1815. Main Library, Kyoto University Rare Materials Digital Archive.
Fig. 1.4. Pages from a medical text. The drawing on the left depicts the optics of what we know to be farsighted vision. The text says that in farsighted vision, the light rays converge at a point behind the convergence point in “normal” vision. (In nearsighted vision, the opposite happens: the light rays converge at a point before the “normal” convergence point.) The key phrase in the text says that a person with this condition “cannot see clearly.” The text suggests that vision can be corrected by adjusting the distance between the eye and the object. Though the actual science of vision is far more complex, the images and text in each frame indicate a new approach that translates vision and visual impairment into optical representation. These representations inspired by Dutch-method medicine mark a shift away from the traditional understanding that a person could see things when the eyes received blood from the liver. From Honjō Fu’ichi, A Guide to Ophthalmology (Japanese title: Ganka kinnō), 1831. Main Library, Kyoto University Rare Materials Digital Archive.
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