Two manuscript volvelles, each with a rotating paper disc & diagrams in the text. 51 folding leaves. 8vo (230 x 165 mm), orig. aubergine wrappers, new stitching. [Japan: mid- to later 18th cent.].

Shuhaku Asai (1643-1705), was a fellow student with Ippo Okamoto of the prominent doctor Sanpaku Ajioka. Asai was the court doctor to the fiefdom of Owari and was considered to be one of Japan’s leading authorities on traditional Chinese medicine. His secret writings on acupuncture have all remained in manuscript, and his private lectures were copied by several generations of students.

This manuscript begins with a discussion of the yin and yang of the five organs and the acupuncture meridians. There is an explanation of kotsudo (how to determine the pressure points by measurement of the bones). In ancient China, bone length measurement was widely used as the basis for positioning of acupuncture points, a system called the bone length method. This process of using body landmarks and a relative unit of measurement called a “body inch” was developed in ancient China and has remained in use to the present day. More