• A Matsuki.
• Department of Anesthesiology, Hirosaki University, School of Medicine.
• Masui. 2000 Sep 1; 49 (9): 1038-43.

AbstractAmong Japanese physicians before the Edo era, Seishu Hanaoka is the most well known even in foreign countries as well as in Japan. His detailed biography is described in a monograph by Shuzo Kure published in 1923 which has been the most important book for the study of Seishu Hanaoka. Hanaoka had worked very hard in various fields as surgeons, educator, poet and community developer. However, his best noted activity was his devotion to the development of oral general anesthetic "Mafutsu-San" or "Tsusen-San". He was the first to succeed in the excision of breast cancer in a 60 year old woman named Kan Aiya under general anesthesia with this agent on Oct 13th, 1804. The details of the case have been known to us, as the manuscript on the case which is believed to be by the hand of Hanaoka is extant in the Tenri Library, Tenri University and the whole manuscripts have been printed in Kure's monograph. For the past twenty years, I have studied carefully the microfilmed manuscript and the printed sentences appeared in Kure's book to find several serious bibliographical errors and dubious points between them. They are as follows. 1) There is no definite proof that the manuscript was transcribed by Seishu Hanaoka himself. This was originally proposed by Shuzo Kure without any rational reasons. 2) There are seven fundamental and unbelievable errors of incorrect use of Chinese characters in the manuscript. These basic errors can not be committed by Hanaoka considering that he was an excellent poet. For these errors Shuzo Kure falsified them to be printed in his book. He even altered Chinese characters in one of the photographs of the manuscript in his book. 3) Shuzo Kure did not exhibit this manuscript at the exhibition on the occasion of 150 anniversary of Seishu Hanaoka's death in Tokyo, supposedly to avoid careful study by other investigators. All above mentioned findings strongly suggest us that the manuscript "Nyugan Chiken Roku" could be transcribed by one of Hanaoka's disciples and not by Hanaoka himself.

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