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RHIJNE, Willem ten (1647-1700). Dissertatio de arthritide: Mantissa schematica: De acupunctura: et orationes tres, I. De chymiae ac botaniae antiquitate & dignitate: II. De physiognomia: III. De monstris. London: R. Chiswell, 1683.
8o (185 x 116 mm). Collation: A8 a-b8 B-Y8. 192 leaves, Y8 blank. Engraved frontispiece portrait of the author by Sturt, 6 folding engraved plates, of which 5 showing acupuncture points. (Light marginal foxing and soiling, 3 plates with short tears at gutter not affecting images.)19th-century calf, morocco lettering-pieces on spine (extremities rubbed, joints split). Provenance: Medical Society of London (inkstamps); Wellcome Library (bookplate and withdrawal stamp).
FIRST EDITION OF THE EARLIEST PUBLISHED TREATISE ON CHINESE AND JAPANESE MEDICINE WRITTEN BY A EUROPEAN. From 1674 to 1676 Ten Rhijne served as resident physician at Deshima, the trading station of the Dutch East India company at Nagasaki Bay, and the only channel for the exchange of scientific information between Europe and Japan during the Floating Kingdom's two centuries of self-imposed isolation. "Ten Rhijne's treatise provided the Western world with its first detailed descriptions of Japanese and Chinese medicine, including acupuncture and moxibustion... Ten Rhijne correctly described acu-tracts but confused them with blood-vessels, a misidentification that persisted in later Western studies of acupuncture... he also attempted to find a link between Chinese medicine and the Western Galenic-Aristotelian medical tradition by translating 'Yang' as 'innate heat' and 'Yin' as 'radical moisture'" (Norman). The engravings are the first Western illustrations of the acu-points (those of Cleyer's Specimen medicinae sinicae (1682) show acu-tracts only). Although published a year later than Cleyer's better-known compilation of Boym's translations of Chinese medical texts (see lot 375), ten Rhijne's treatise is possibly the more important of the two works, as it represents the first attempt by a European to reconcile the widely divergent philosophies of Asian and European medicine.
RARE. Garrison-Morton 6374.10; NLM/Krivatsy 9603 (imperfect copy); Waller 9518; Wellcome IV, p. 517; Wing R-1326; Norman 2062.
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FIRST EDITION OF THE EARLIEST PUBLISHED TREATISE ON CHINESE AND JAPANESE MEDICINE WRITTEN BY A EUROPEAN. From 1674 to 1676 Ten Rhijne served as resident physician at Deshima, the trading station of the Dutch East India company at Nagasaki Bay, and the only channel for the exchange of scientific information between Europe and Japan during the Floating Kingdom's two centuries of self-imposed isolation. "Ten Rhijne's treatise provided the Western world with its first detailed descriptions of Japanese and Chinese medicine, including acupuncture and moxibustion... Ten Rhijne correctly described acu-tracts but confused them with blood-vessels, a misidentification that persisted in later Western studies of acupuncture... he also attempted to find a link between Chinese medicine and the Western Galenic-Aristotelian medical tradition by translating 'Yang' as 'innate heat' and 'Yin' as 'radical moisture'" (Norman). The engravings are the first Western illustrations of the acu-points (those of Cleyer's Specimen medicinae sinicae (1682) show acu-tracts only). Although published a year later than Cleyer's better-known compilation of Boym's translations of Chinese medical texts (see lot 375), ten Rhijne's treatise is possibly the more important of the two works, as it represents the first attempt by a European to reconcile the widely divergent philosophies of Asian and European medicine.
RARE. Garrison-Morton 6374.10; NLM/Krivatsy 9603 (imperfect copy); Waller 9518; Wellcome IV, p. 517; Wing R-1326; Norman 2062.