Who Proposed the First Exhibition of Medicines in Edo?

Hiraga Gennai (1728-1779) is known as a multi-talented scholar/ author in 18th century Japan and has been studied from various angles. It is widely believed that he suggested his teacher, Tamura Ransui to hold the first exhibition of medicines in Edo in 1757. The achievements of the exhibition were written by Hiraga and published as Butsurui Hinshitsu in 1763. It was Jōfuku Isamu who first emphasized Hiraga’s role as a proposer of the event in 1971 based on the description of one of the prefaces of the book by Tamura. Sugimoto Tsutomu examined the whole prefaces of the book and supported the hypothesis in 1972. Fukuda Yasunori indicated in 2013 that Hiraga knew there were small scale exhibitions of medicines in Osaka hosted by Tsushima Joran already during 1751-1754, so that Hiraga could suggest Tamura to hold the first exhibition in Edo, based on a diary by Kimura Kenkadō.This paper examines carefully the prefaces of Butsurui Hinshitsu and points out some descriptions overlooked in previous studies, which read that Hiraga did not initiate the exhibition, and also suggests that the words in Kimura’ diary don’t have enough ground to support Fukuda’s discussion. The conclusion is that the first exhibition of medicines in Japan was proposed by Tamura with his own intention and held in 1757. Tamura then hosted exhibitions of medicines five times in total in Edo during 1757-1762