Hermann Buschoff

Zeelandia and the surrounding area (17th century)

German edition of Buschoff's book on foot gout (Podagra)

Frontispiece of the English edition (1676) of Buschoff's script

Treatment of Podagra and Chiagra with Moxa in Michael Bernhard Valentinis Museum Museorum (1714). This engraving was designed based on Buschoff's description.

Hermann Buschoff (also: Busschof / Bushovius ; * approx. 1620 in Utrecht ; † July 19, 1674 in Batavia ) was a Dutch Reformed pastor and author of the first western book on the Chinese therapy method of moxibustion .

background

The first European encounters with Chinese medicine did not take place in China, but in the surrounding regions. As early as the end of the 16th century, Portuguese Jesuits reported from Japan about "fire buttons" made from herbs (port. Botões de fogo ) that doctors placed on certain parts of the body. However, this information was not too detailed and spread over many types of text, so that there was no significant reaction among doctors in Europe. With the book by the Dutch pastor Hermann Buschoff published in 1675, however, a sustained debate about this burning therapy began.

Life

After studying Protestant theology in Leiden, Buschoff first worked as a pastor in Zoelen and Culemborg before applying for a job with the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in 1654 .

Shortly after his arrival in Batavia (now Jakarta) he was sent to Formosa , where the Dutch built the Zeelandia base in the bay of "Taiwan" (which later gave the entire island its name) and tried to evangelize the locals in the surrounding villages. However, the climate was bad for his health, so he returned to Batavia in 1657.

But even here all sorts of problems remained. Especially the foot gout ( podagra ) bothered him hard. After many painful seizures, with which the European doctors could not help him, he sought out a " doctoress " from the Indochinese " Quinam " ( Quảng Nam ). After carefully examining the condition, she placed small cones made of a wool-like substance on certain places on his knee and made them glow with an incense stick. The effect impressed Buschoff so much that, after extensive study of Western literature on Podagra and the use of the miraculous fuel wool, he wrote a manuscript, which was only printed shortly after his death in Amsterdam: Het Podagra, nader als oyt nagevorst en uytgevonden, midsgaders des selfs sekere Genesingh of ontlastend Hulp means .

Buschoff's book on Podagra and Moxa

The book is written in the form of a dialogue between Theophilus, "a lover of the truth", and Theodidactus, "a teacher or doctor of the Holy Scriptures". Using the medical literature, Buschoff investigates the nature and therapy of foot gout and then introduces the new remedy that he calls "Moxa". Although he emphasizes that this moxa is widespread among the Chinese and Japanese, it remains unclear whether he knew that the name he used came from Japanese ( mogusa ).

Buschoff had also asked the local doctors in Batavia about the remedy and its effects. Some elements of Chinese medicine can therefore be identified in his writing. The "pent-up, malignant vapors" that he cites as the cause of gout are a reflex to the concept of " Qi ", which circulates in the tracts and channels of the so-called "meridian system" and, if there is a local deficiency or excess, leads to diseases. Buschoff misunderstood these meridians as blood vessels. According to him, the best way to remove the “vapors and moisture” through the moxa is through the veins.

Buschoff's writing had the greatest impact on the doctors of the German Academia Naturae Curiosorum , an association of naturalists founded in 1652. The first reports in the Miscellanea Curiosa were followed by a German translation of Buschoff's writing in 1677, which led to further discussions about the nature and use of moxa as well as to the intensive search for inexpensive substitutes ( Moxa Germanica ).

Buschoff was not a physician, so that his name soon disappeared from the debate that was being carried on among experts. But it was he who steered European interest in the long term to burn therapy and coined the term “moxa”, which is anchored in almost all western languages ​​today. And long after the Batavian pastor had been forgotten, in Europe moxa, which can be used against a large number of ailments, was mainly regarded as a remedy for podagra.

Works

• Het Podagra, Nader als oyt nagevorst en uytgevonden, Midsgaders Des selfs secere Genesingh of ontlastend Hulp-Mittel . Door Hermanus Busschof de Oude van Utrecht, Predikant op Batavia in East India. 't Amsterdam, By Jacobus de Jonge, 1675.
• Two Treatises, The one, Medical, Of the Gout, And its Nature more narrowly search'd into than hitherto, together with a new way or discharging the same. By Herman Busschof Senior, of Utrecht, residing at Batavia in the East-Indies, in the service of the Dutch East-Indian Company. The Other Partly Surgical, partly Medical; Containing Some Observations and Practices relating both to some extraordinary cases of Women in Travel and to some other uncommon cases of Diseases in both Sexes. By Henry van Roonhuyse, Physician in Ordinary at Amsterdam. Englished out of Dutch by a careful hand. London: Printed by HC and are to be sold by Moses Pitt at the Chapel in St. Paul's Churchyard 1676 ( digitized ).
• The carefully investigated and invented Podagra, Mediating yourself safely = own recovery and redeeming help = Means / By Herrmann Busschoof the elder of Utrecht / to New = Batavia in East = India lives / Described in Dutch / and anietzo translated into German by someone from the college Naturae Curiosorum. Relocated by Esaiae Fellgibel / bookseller in Breßlau. In 1677.
• The carefully examined and invented Podagra, mediated by Herrmann Busschoof the elder of Utrecht / New Batavia in East India, first described in Dutch / anjetzo but translated into German by someone outside the Collegio Naturae Curiosorum. and request / increase this time with a note. by D. Johann. Christoph. Etern. Royal Mayst. in Pohlen Rath and Leib Medico. Breßlau / in relocation Esaiae Fellgibels seel Wittib and Erben. 1693 ( digitized version ).

Publications

• CAL van Troostenburg de Bruijn: Biographical woordenboek van Oost-Indian preachers . Nijmegen, Milborn 1893.
• Gerhart Feucht: The moxa treatment in Europe . Haug: Heidelberg 1977. ISBN 3776004436
• Hermann Buschof - First treatise on moxibustion in Europe . Re-edited and commented by Wolfgang Michel. Haug: Heidelberg 1993. ISBN 978-3-8304-0622-8
• Wolfgang Michel: On the introduction of Moxa in Europe: Life and Writings of Hermann Buschoff . In: Bulletin of the Japan-Netherlands Institute, Vol.23, No.1 (No.45) (Tokyo, Oct. 1998), pp. 47–63 (Japanese) ( digitized in the Kyushu University Institutional Repository )
• Wolfgang Michel: Far Eastern Medicine in Seventeenth and Early Eighteenth Century Germany . Studies in Languages ​​and Cultures (Faculty of Languages ​​and Cultures, Kyushu University), No. 20 (2004), pp. 67-82. ( Digitized in the Kyushu University Institutional Repository ).