It is not necessary to follow in detail the line of Tokugawa shōguns. Few of them impressed themselves in any marked manner on the history of their country. Iemitsu, the third shōgun, who was a grandson of Ieyasu, was a man of great ability, and left many marks of his talents upon the empire. Under his administration the capital made great advances. He bound the daimyōs to his house by [pg 305] requiring them to maintain residences in Yedo under the surveillance of the government. His mausoleum is placed with that of his grandfather amid the august glories of Nikkō. Tsunayoshi (1681-1709) during his incumbency was more than usually interested in the peaceful prosperity of his country, and is gratefully remembered for his patronage of education and letters. But on the whole they were content to fill the office of shōgun in a perfunctory manner, and to leave to subordinates the duty of governing.
Japan reached the acme of her ancient greatness during the Tokugawa dynasty. The arts which have given her such a deservedly high rank attained their greatest perfection. Keramics and lacquer, which are her most exquisite arts, achieved a degree of excellence to which we can now only look back with hopeless admiration. Metal-work, as shown in the manufacture of bronze and in the forging and mounting of swords, was scarcely less notable. The still higher art of painting, which came to Japan from China, rose during the Tokugawa period to the rank which it still holds in the estimation of the artistic world.
The best evidence, however, of the civilization of a people is found in their social condition. To learn the true culture of a nation it is necessary to study their education and literature, their laws and system of government, and their morals and religion. In some of these particulars it is still difficult to obtain an adequate knowledge of Japan. But gradually they are being revealed to us. The laws and legal [pg 306] precedents[259] which prevailed during the Tokugawa period have been unearthed from the archives of the Department of Justice and are being published in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society.
The medical and scientific advancement of Japan in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was not co-ordinate with her progress in the arts. They were hampered with the old Chinese notions about a male principle and a female principle which were conceived to prevail in nature, and with the five elements to which the human organs were supposed to correspond. Fortunately nature has ways of healing diseases in spite of theories and drugs. To this benign principle must be assigned the fact that the human race has survived the surgery and medicaments of mediæval Europe as well as mediæval China and Japan. In one particular the medical art of Japan seems to have been differently, perhaps better, conducted than in Europe. It is narrated by the Japanese annalists,[260] that if a physican made a mistake in his prescription or in his directions for taking the medicine he was punished by three years' imprisonment and a heavy fine; and if there should be any impurity in the medicine prescribed or any mistake in the preparation, sixty lashes were inflicted besides a heavy fine.
Oban. Gold Coin, 1727.
Three peculiar modes of medical practice deserve [pg 308] notice. The first was acupuncture, which consisted in inserting a thin needle through the skin into the muscles beneath. A second was the cauterization by moxa[261] (Japanese mogusa). This was effected by placing over the spot a small conical wad of the fibrous blossoms of mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris latifolia). The cone was kindled at the top and slowly burned till it was consumed. A painful blister was produced on the spot, which was believed to have a wholesome effect in the case of many complaints. A third mode of treatment is the practice of massage (amma), which western nations have borrowed, and which in Japan it has long been the exclusive privilege of the blind to apply.
Cauterizing With Moxa.
Many of the improved notions of western medicine were introduced by the Dutch, and this accounts for the unprecedentedly rapid advance which this science has made since the opening of the country.