Willem ten Rhijne

Willem ten Rhijne. Frontispiece by John Sturt in Dissertatio de Arthritide ... (1683).

Japanese acupuncture hammer and needle for the so-called " tapping needling " according to Mubun. Little hammers, needles, techniques and therapy locations were developed independently in Japan, something that Europeans did not know until the 19th century and were unknown in China. The needle was put back into the hollow handle after use. From: Dissertatio de Arthritide ... (1683).

"Scheme Japonicum". The pose of the figure as well as the design of the channels (meridians) are freely designed and have little in common with the Japanese model. From: Dissertatio de Arthritide ... (1683).

Willem ten Rhijne , also Wilhelmus ten Rhyne (* 1647 in Deventer ; † June 1, 1700 Batavia ) was a Dutch doctor who was in the service of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and the first western treatise on acupuncture as well as an equally groundbreaking one Wrote work on leprosy in Asia.

Life

Willem ten Rhijne came from Deventer in the Netherlands, had studied medicine in Franeker's "High School" and from 1668 in Leiden , and at the end of that year with the famous Franciscus de le Boe (Sylvius) with a thesis on pain caused by intestinal winds ( “De Dolore Intestionorum e Flatu”) acquired the degree of Doctor of Medicine at the age of 21. In 1669 he published an “Exercitatio physiologica in celebrem Hippocratis textum de vet. med. ”, which was printed three years later as“ Meditationes in magni Hippocratis textum XXIV de veteri medicina ”and with almost 400 pages testifies to the ambitions of this young doctor.

On February 6, 1673 he joined the Dutch East India Company as a doctor with the grade of a merchant, d. H. a salary of 60 guilders. Ten Rhijne had been specially selected to serve in Japan. In order to become more independent of the expensive imports of medicinal products, the company had been asked in 1667 for seeds and saplings and for the dispatch of a qualified herbalist and specialist in the distillation of medicinal oils. The request came from the Imperial Council and was transmitted in the name of the Shogun by the governor of the Imperial Nagasaki domain .

The fulfillment of such wishes contributed to the improvement of the Dutch-Japanese trade relations, so that the general government of the company in Batavia reacted quickly. The first seeds and saplings arrived in 1669, and the young pharmacist Godefried Haeck was also sent, but the Japanese were very dissatisfied with him. His replacement, the German pharmacist Franz Braun, who also brought the distillation system from Europe with him in the summer of 1671, was judged a little better. With the sending of the talented Dr. Ten Rhijne, so the hope in Batavia and Amsterdam , would finally satisfy the Japanese government. As a scientific envoy, he was supposed to present the achievements of western medicine and at the same time underscore the company's commitment. Probably in order to repair any damage to the distillation equipment, he had to go to East Asia and the like. a. learn to blow glass, because there was still no one in Batavia who was able to do so.

During the obligatory stopover at the Cape of Good Hope , Ten Rhijne dealt with the flora of South Africa and observed the Khoikhoi ("Hottentots") living in the vicinity of the Dutch base . After arriving in Batavia, due to the seasonal wind conditions, he had to wait a few months before leaving for Japan. During this time he got to know the circle of Europeans interested in nature and culture on Java. Among other things, he held a lecture in the anatomy chamber newly established in 1673 by the doctor and then operator of the Batavian pharmacy Andreas Cleyer . He also made the acquaintance of Pastor Hermann Buschoff . After a long illness, Buschoff had his foot gout ( podagra ) treated by a local doctor and then wrote a long manuscript about the revolutionary medicine used by the Chinese and Japanese, which he described under the name of moxa .

At the end of July 1674, Ten Rhijne finally arrived at the Dejima trading post (Nagasaki). The following two years brought all kinds of disappointments. In Batavia and Amsterdam there was a reason to believe that the Shogun personally wanted a qualified doctor to visit him. However, the cultivation of the seeds and plants that had been supplied since 1669 had failed, and interest in this project had since declined considerably. Probably to save face, the Japanese side presented the whole thing as a misunderstanding. Ten Rhijne was valued as a doctor and information partner and asked him in Nagasaki as at the Edo court for medical help and instructions on Western medicine, but this did not happen to the extent originally expected. Ten Rhijne's disappointment and anger are clearly expressed in complaints submitted in writing to the head of the Dutch trading office.

When he set out to return to Batavia on October 27, 1676, he did not leave Japan empty-handed in spite of everything. Suggested by Buschoff, he had studied the use of moxa in Japan. In the “Dissertatio de Arthritide” printed in 1683, he devoted a detailed commentary to Buschof's work in order to then expand on his own observations.

In addition, he now owned one of the most famous works of Chinese medicine, the “Illustrated Manual of Needling and Burning Transport Points, shown on the bronze figure” ( Tongren shuxue zhenjiu tujing ). This manual published by the doctor Wang Weiyi around 1026/27 saw many reprints in Japan as well. The bronze figure is originally a hollow, life-size human figure filled with water. The therapy points were marked by a hole. In order to cover it up and to prevent the liquid from escaping, the doll was covered with wax. If you hit the right spot while practicing or during exams, a few drops of water came out. Because of the high production costs and the effort involved in using them, however, simple dolls made of many different materials soon became widespread and were used for viewing and demonstration. Ten Rhijne had the text translated and explained by the two Japanese interpreters Motoki Shōdayu and Iwanaga Sōko. Even before Engelbert Kaempfer , he also brought a golden acupuncture needle and the associated hammer for the “impact needling” / “ knocking needling ” developed in Japan . There was also a travel guide for the East Sea Road (Tōkaidō), a nobility calendar ("Edo-kagami") and samples of the Japanese syllable alphabet. His notes were sufficient for several treatises that appeared in Europe in the following years.

Ten Rhijne took over the honorary office of deacon in Batavia in 1677. On June 28th he was appointed external regent of the leprosy station ("Buijtenregent van't Lasarushuijs"). In 1679 he wrote a “Korte beschrijvinge der voornaemste kragten van Oost-Indische enkele geneesmiddelen” for the company, which presented various regional remedies that could be used as a substitute for European funds. However, Andreas Cleyer , who had been dealing with this problem for a long time, only found critical words as a reviewer. A flexible man like Ten Rhijne also proved himself as a member of the provisional mountain college, which was supposed to increase the efficiency of the Salidash gold and silver mines on the west coast of Sumatra. By order of the Directory in Holland, which he had written to specifically on this matter, he was appointed a member of the Justice Council ("Raad van Justitie"), the supreme body of the judiciary in East India, on March 14, 1681. Finally, on August 24, 1682, his salary rose to 100 guilders, the maximum level for non-merchants.

Ten Rhijne had made a remarkable career in the eight years or so since he was hired, to which the patronage by Pieter van Dam , lawyer and councilor of the VOC in Amsterdam, contributed a lot. Since August 19, 1681 he was again responsible for the leprosy orium on the small island of Pumerend near Batavia, from January 1682 he also worked as an expert for leprosy suspects. One should also mention his work as a school councilor for church schools since 1684, which ended with his death on June 1, 1700.

Despite all the offices and duties and the murderous climate for Europeans, Ten Rhijne wrote works that made him known in Europe. Arranged in the order of their publication dates, the “Excerpta ex observationibus suis Japonicis Physicis & c. de Fructice Thee ”. The Gdansk merchant Jakob Breyne (1637–1697), famous as a botanist , had received these materials for Japanese tea as well as other rare plants of the cape or the bay of Sardanha from Ten Rhijne and immediately added them to his work "Exoticarum aliarumque Minus Cognitarum Plantarum Centuria Prima" ( Danzig 1678) incorporated. With regard to Japan, the description of the camphor tree ("Arbor Camphorifera Japonica"), which Rhijne had transmitted from Nagasaki in 1674, should be emphasized. Breyne added the illustration of a tea plant sent to the diplomat Hieronymus van Beverningh a year later in his own chapter "The Sinensium, sive Tsia Japonensibus".

1683 appeared in London "Dissertatio de Arthritide: Mantissa Schematica: De Acupunctura: Et Orationes Tres". This compendium includes six papers and a few letters. The first contribution, a "Dissertatio de Arthritide", offered detailed information about the burning of moxa in Japan. The “Mantissa Schematica” presented Chinese and Japanese illustrations of the meridians for needling and burning for the first time. However, Ten Rhijne interpreted the lines - like other Europeans before him - as arteries and veins. The following work is the oldest detailed western description of needle pricking, for which Ten Rhijne coined the term acupunctura (Latin acus, needle; pungere, sting).

The description of the Khoikhoi in the Cape Colony , printed in 1686 , which the East India Company had built up since 1653, is frequently cited today . He also put his skills to the test with the last work, a 'Treatise on Asiatic Leprosy after closer examination for the benefit of the general public', which appeared in Amsterdam in 1687. This remained the best description of the subject until the beginning of the 19th century.

Works

• Disputatio medica de dolore intestinorum a flatu […] publicae medicorum disquisitioni subjicit Wilhelmus ten Rhyne […] Præs. F. de le Boe Sylvio. Lugduni Batavorum: apud viduam & haeredes Joannis Elsevirii, 1668.
• Exercitatio physiologica in celebrem Hippocratis textum de vet. med. Quam […] sub praesidio […] Francisci de le Boe Sylvii […] publico medicorum examini submittit Wilhelmus ten Rhyne […] ad diem [] Iunii, loco horisque solitis, ante mer. Lugduni Batavorum: apud viduam & haeredes Johannis Elsevirii, 1669.
• Meditationes in magni Hippocratis textum XXIV de veteri medicina quibus traduntur brevis pneumatologia, succincta phytologia, intercalaris chymología & c .; cum additamento & variis hinc inde laciniis de salvium & c. Lugduni Batavorum: apud Johannem à Schuylenburgh, 1672.
• Wilhelmi ten Rhyne Medici, Botanici & Chymici quondam Magni Imperatoris Japonicæ, nunc verò Medicinæ & Anatomiæ Professoris in Batavia Emporio Indiæ Orientalis celeberrimo Excerpta ex observationibus suis Japonicis Physicis & c. de Fructice Thee. Cui accedit Fasciculus Rariorum Plantarum from eodem DD ten Rhyne In Promontorio Bonæ Speï et Saldanhâ Sinu Anno MDCLXXIII. collectarum, atque demum ex Indiâ Anno MDCLXXVII. in Europam ad Jacobus Breynium, Gedanensem transmissarum. In: Jacobi Breynii Gedanensis Icones Exoticarum aliarumque Minus Cognitarum Plantarum in Centuria Prima descriptarum Plantae Exoticae. Gedani: Rhetius, 1678 (pp. [VII] - XXV)
• Wilhelmi ten Rhyne MD & c. Transisalano-Daventriensis Dissertatio de Arthritide: Mantissa Schematica: De Acupunctura: Et Orationes Tres. I. De Chymiae ac Botaniae antiquitate & dignitage: II. De Psysiognomia: III. De Monstris. Singula ipsius Authoris notis illustrata. Londini: imp. R. Chiswell ad insigne Rosae Corona, 1683.
• Schediasma de promontorio bonae spei eiusque tractus incolis Hottentottis Wilhelmi ten Rhyne Schediasma de promontorio bonae spei eiusque ejusqve tractus incolis Hottentottis accurante, brevesque notas addente Henr. Screta S. a Zavorziz. Scafusii: Meister, 1686 (2nd print 1716; English edition: An Account of the Cape of Good Hope and the Hottentotes, the Natives of that Country. 1704)
• Negotiators van de Asiatise Melaatsheid, Na een naaukeuriger ondersoek, ten dienste van het gemeen, Opgesteld door Wilhem ten Rhyne, MD Op Batavia. t'Amsterdam: By Abraham van Someren, 1687.

literature

• JZ Bowers and RW Carrubba: The western world's first detailed treatise on acupuncture: Willem Ten Rhijne's De acupunctura. Journal of the history of medicine and allied sciences. Vol. XXIX 1974, No 4, pp. 371-399.
• Harold J. Cook: Matters of Exchange. Commerce, Medicine, and Science in the Dutch Golden Age . Yale University Press, New Haven CT et al. 2007, ISBN 978-0-300-14321-8 .
• JMR van Dorsson: Willem ten Rhijne . In: Geneeskundig Tijdschrift Voor Nederlandsch-Indie . No. 51, 1911, ISSN  0367-5394 , pp. 134-228.
• Michael Eyl: Sino-Japanese acupuncture in France (1810-1826) and its theoretical basis (1683-1825). Zurich 1978, pp. 3–6.
• Seiichi Iwao: A Dutch Doctor in Old Japan . In: Japan Quarterly . Vol. 8, No. 2, 1961, ISSN  0021-4590 , pp. 170-178.
• Guizhen Lu, Joseph Needham : Celestial Lancets. A History and Rationale of Acupuncture and Moxa . Routledge Curzon, London et al. 2002, ISBN 0-7007-1458-8 .
• Hermann Buschof - First treatise on moxibustion in Europe . Re-edited and commented by Wolfgang Michel. Haug: Heidelberg 1993.
• Wolfgang Michel : Willem ten Rhijne and Japanese medicine . (I). In: Doku-Futsu-bungaku-kenky¯u / Ky¯udai Doku-Futsu bungaku kenky¯ukai . No. 39, 1989, pp. 75-125, digitized .
• Wolfgang Michel, Elke Werger-Klein: Drop by Drop. The Introduction of Western Distillation Techniques into Seventeenth-Century Japan . In: Journal of the Japan Society of Medical History . Vol. 50, 2004, No. 4, ZDB -ID 339806-7 , pp. 463-492, digitized .
• Wolfgang Michel: Medicine and Allied Sciences in the Cultural Exchange between Japan and Europe in the Seventeenth Century . In: Hans Dieter Ölschleger (Ed.): Theories and Methods in Japanese Studies. Current State & Future Developments . Papers in Honor of Josef Kreiner . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Unipress, Göttingen 2007, ISBN 978-3-89971-355-8 , pp. 285-302 digitized .
• I. Schapera (Ed.): The early Cape Hottentots. Described in the writings of Olfert Dapper (1668), Willem ten Rhyne (1686) and Johannes Gulielmus de Grevenbrock (1695) . The Van Riebeeck Society, Cape Town 1933, ( Van Riebeeck Society Publications 14), (Reprint: Negro Universities Press, Westport CT 1970, ISBN 0-8371-3787-X ).

Remarks

1. ↑ More details from Michel / Werger-Klein (2004) and Michel (2007)
2. ↑ See Hermann Buschof - First Treatise on Moxibustion in Europe .
3. ↑ Wáng Wéi Yī: Tóngrén shùxué zhēn-jiǔ tújīng ( Chinese   王 惟一: 銅 人 腧 穴 鍼灸 圖 經 )
4. ↑ Motoki Shōdayu Ryōi ( 本 木 庄太夫 良 意 , 1628–1697) was a full-time interpreter for the Dejima branch.
5. ↑ Iwanaga Sōko ( 岩 永 宗 古 , 1634–1705) was a student of the Confucian scholar and doctor Mukai Genshō ( 向 井 元 升 )
6. ↑ Impact needle / tapping needle / hammer needle, Japan. uchibari or dashin ( 打鍼 ). The needles are, because they are driven in with light tapping, thicker than the usual needles screwed in by hand.
7. ↑ Mentioned in an undated memorandum by Herbert de Jager in the Sloane Collection of the British Library: Sl 3064, fol. 50r - 51v.
8. ↑ Cleyer's report was edited by Kraft (1985, pp. 199f.).
9. ↑ A detailed summary of the content appeared in English in the Philosophical Transactions of the English Royal Society (Vol. 13, 1683). More important for the reception of the moxa and acupuncture parts at that time, however, was Steven Blankaart's imprint in his “Verhandelinge van het Podagra” (1684). This book was published in German in 1692 as "Accurate treatise from the Podagra and the Lauffenden Gout".
10. ↑ There have been brief hints and observations since the 16th century, not from China, but from Japan. See W. Michel: Early Western Observations on Acupuncture and Moxibustion. In: Sudhoffs Archiv, Vol. 77, No. 2, pp. 194-222 (1993). ( Digitized version )