[Medicine in the "Nisuke-banashi"]

In the Edo period, the "Nisuke-banashi" was written in Yabe district in Higo, Kumamoto Prefecture. This book described the lives of the farmers who were very poor and lived under very difficult conditions. In the book a doctor had an important role in explaining the truth. He also advised on some medical affairs. The author of this book was presumed to be a doctor named Watanabe Tadasu who lived in Hama-machi, Yabe. I studied the medical explanations in this book and found that these stories were based on old Chinese medical texts such as Somon, Shokanron and Kinkiyoryaku.