Medical Discourse and Nobyo(腦病) Treatment in the Meiji Period

This paper examines perceptions of the brain and neurological system in modern Japan, and the characteristics of medical discourse, including drug treatment that developed during the Meiji period. To understand the perceptions of the medical establishment during this period, this paper investigates the correlation between brain cognition and sales of Kennogan(健腦丸), which was renowned as a cure for neurasthenia, headaches, and constipation, and the introduction of medical knowledge related to the brain and neurological system, as well as the efficacy of medication. Around the 1870s, “modern medicine” appeared shortly after the Meiji government began to regulate health care. Medical knowledge imported from the West increased in the mid and late nineteenth century. At the same time, public interest in the brain and neurological system led to increases in sales of medicines thought to cure various neurological system-related ailments. In this paper, I focus on the use of a patented medicine called Kennogan, sales of which increased during the Meiji period in Japan, in conjunction with the pursuit of modernization and progress that characterized this period. As can be seen by a review of the literature, increased medical knowledge of the brain and nervous system in Japan at this time led to the widespread assumption that mental illness was the result of brain and nervous system disorders, which could be treated. The treatment method was taking medicine. Also, the ambiguity of medical knowledge at the time promoted drug sales. On the contrary, the government’s policy for mentally ill patients influenced drug advertisements and sales. Gradually, the development of psychiatry brought about a change in the efficacy of patented medicines for the brain and nervous system. The present paper illustrates the relationship between the establishment of medical knowledge in modern Japan and the medical culture that developed during the process of the transformation from a traditional medical culture to a westernized and modernized culture in the Meiji period.ope