#historical notes

[talesofedo]

(Patient being fitted with a prosthetic nose)

File this entire post under "things you didn't expect to read about today." I give you: prosthetic noses, eyes, and dentures in the Edo period.

The following information comes from Nasal and Orbital Epitheses in Japan Until Early Modern Times by Yoshida Kasuya. You can find the full text of the article here if you're interested in reading more. It's free and does not require academic login.

I've edited the excerpts below to focus on the main points. The original article goes into more detail about the history of epitheses (artificial facial parts used to reconstruct damaged areas of the face) both abroad and in Japan, and the histories of the assorted types of craftsmen who created these items in Japan. The original also has a ton of pictures for illustration purposes.

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Some Take-Away Points

+ Japanese epitheses were created by craftsmen, rather than medical professionals. People who created Buddhist statues, Noh masks, and netsuke created dentures and prosthetic eyes and noses.

+ Written documentation suggests dentures were known and used in Japan beginning somewhere between the late 13th and early 14th Centuries.

+ A common reason people needed prosthetic noses was syphilis, which has been reported in Japan since the early 1500s. Sugita Genpaku estimated in 1810 that 70-80% of his patients had syphilis. Ew.

+ A common reason people needed artificial eyes was due to Gonorrheal conjunctivitis, a leading cause of blindness in the Edo period.

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Article excerpts of Interest

Tanba Suemoto (1249–1323) reportedly created dentures for edentulous men and is considered the inventor of wooden dentures; however, no concrete evidence has been excavated. Wooden dentures, which may have been based on this technology, developed solely in Japan, and the world’s first complete denture with retention by suction force was used in the 16th century. These wooden dentures were astonishingly invented by craftsmen without dental knowledge, 300 years before Western dentists.

... Historical flyers, signs, books, and other materials suggest that denturists also created orbital epithesis and nasal epithesis. Although the origin of denturists remains unknown, skilled craftsmen who carved Buddha statues, Netsukes, and Noh masks may have initially been asked to make dentures by their relatives or acquaintances as favors.

...

Evidence is abundant of the prevalence of syphilis and use of artificial noses in the Edo period (1603–1868), including Senryu (a seventeen- syllable poem, which is often satirical of the times), Ukiyo-e, Nishiki-e, books, and Rakugo (comic monologues).

Many of the phrases in senryu are based on people who lost their noses to syphilis. These include “Oya no me wo nusunde musuko hana ga ochi (Unbeknownst to parents, son’s nose fell off)” and “Kushami site namusan tonda saikubana (Sneezing, oops, artificial nose flew away). ... A Rakugo story called “Okafui” is named after a man with a missing nose caused by syphilis who tried to pronounce the word “okashii (funny),” but it sounded like “okafui.”

...

The manufacturing method for artificial eyes was also introduced in “Ganka Kinno”(1831), written by Honjo Fuichi (1798–1846). While the gyokugan was made of crystal, the artificial eye was made of glass, and its inner surface was colored in the same way as the gyokugan. The method of coloring the pupil and iris is described in detail [in the book].

[boleynqueenes]

Of course, Cromwell might have helped to obtain a divorce; but he saw that it [...] would [not] be [...] in his own [...] interest to proceed in this manner. [...] [For this] reason: Anne, if she were simply divorced, would still remain Marchioness of Pembroke, with a very considerable fortune, and with some devoted friends. Rochford had gained experience, and showed no little ability, and he, acting with his sister, might form a party which would be hostile to the secretary.

Friedmann, Paul, and Josephine Wilkinson.

[elephantlovemedleys]

Singing, dancing, and music surrounded this lady princess in her youth. She herself learned to dance, to play instruments, and to love the music of the 13 minstrels retained by Edward IV for entertaining at court festivals. The minstrels' trumpets,shawms,small pipes, and strings added a professional component to her early musical education and became a vital, ever-present part of Elizabeth of York's life. As queen, Elizabeth retained her own minstrels quite separate from those of Henry VII⎯and rewarded them generously. Her own children played the lute, virginal, clavichord, and organ, while she herself played the clavichord (and perhaps other instruments). Her son Henry VIII became renowned for his singing, dancing, and composing. ⎺ Elizabeth of York (Queenship and Power), Arlene Okerlund

[preludecomic]

Chapter 1, Page 8 + notes

Shiiiiiiiiiiipppppsssssssssss

[jennamoran]

Chuubo’s Icons

A brief bit of history!

Chuubo’s has gone through four versions of its icons.

In my earliest drafts, I used the trigrams:

☰ Blue / Decisive

☵ Orange / Struggle

☱ Green / Lurid

☳ Red / Melodramatic

☶ Gold / Passionate

☲ Purple / Pastoral

☷ Grey / Setting

☴ Black / Mystic

Then, Anthony Damiani created the following set for me:

... which was definitely critical to my being able to fully develop the text, since it helped a lot to have the proper visual markers in the text as I worked.

Claudia Cangini didn’t feel they fit with the look of the book she was building, though, so she built her own variant:

Finally, Matthew Lind created the chuubo_icon font found in the ePub.

[martymusesloveinexile]

Here are some historical images of Hakodate. As one of the very first ports (literally one of two) to be opened to foreign trade in the 1850s, Hokodate was quite diverse compared to most other places in Japan, despite it’s northern location and the fact that it was quite far from other big cities like Tokyo and Kyoto. This can be evidenced by the variety of people depicted in the drawing above.

Hakodate had a large, well protected harbor and as you can see from the pictures above was built out onto a peninsula.

Hakodate also has an interesting Russia/Japan connection in that it was home to the first Russian Consulate, which was founded in 1858. And it was also home to the first Russian Orthodox Church in Japan, built and consecrated just three years later. The original church is no longer standing, but the one built in 1916 is.

[thetwoguineabook]

Historical notes - The Circle

So we had Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Churchill, Attlee, Eisenhower, Truman, Hirohito and Oshima all show up one way or another, but in the end the real life historical figure who had the most actual lines in Blackbird was a somewhat obscure Swiss actor named Karl Meier, who under the alias ‘Rolf’ was one of the most important figures in European gay history.

A gay and lesbian magazine called the ‘Swiss Friendship Banner’ had been founded in Zürich in 1932, focusing primarily on advocating for reform in Swiss law regarding homosexuality. In 1942, the same year that the new Swiss Criminal Code decriminalised gay sex between persons aged over 20, Rolf took over as senior editor of the magazine and changed its name to ‘The Circle’ (Der Kreis in German). Under his editorship the magazine’s content became exclusively for gay men and moved away from political advocacy and towards cultural sharing and the promotion of friendship and social connection. There were subscribers receiving the magazine all over the world, including men living in Nazi Germany during the war.

Rolf had a very solid idea of the notion of the ‘ideal gay man’ and ideal gay culture, valuing long-term, monogamous partnerships and emphasising friendship, romantic love and artistic aesthetics rather than focusing on sex. His ideas were largely reflected in the content published in The Circle, which in no small part helped them stay in the good graces of the Swiss media censors. However once the magazine added an English section alongside its German and French content in the early 1950s, English-language writers could generally get away with being a bit more risqué, provided they sanitised the content in translation for both Rolf and the censors!

The Circle was also a social club which held regular functions in Zùrich, which only served to bolster the city’s status as the effective gay capital of Europe at the time. It was particularly popular as a destination for gay Germans, who continued to be prosecuted under Paragraph 175 and whose persecution by the Nazis went unacknowledged.

Readership began to decline in the 1960s, partly due to the increased popularity of Scandinavian gay magazines, which didn’t have to deal with the strictures of Swiss censorship, and eventually ceased publication in 1967, although several members of its editorial staff launched a new magazine together the following year. At the loss of his vocation of nearly a quarter of a century, Rolf reportedly had a nervous breakdown and had to be cared for for the remainder of his life by his long-term partner Fredi.

I don’t normally hype up my sources on these posts, but in this case if this subject interests you at all I highly recommend checking out The Circle. It’s a 2014 Swiss docudrama which tells the story of Röbi Rapp and Ernst Ostertag, the first same-sex couple to marry in Switzerland, who met each other through The Circle in the 1950s. It suffers from the usual issues of docudramas in that the re-enacted bits don’t always mesh that well with the talking heads bits, but honestly the real Ernst and Röbi are such freaking adorable old marrieds that I could get past it. Gay cinema is so often neglected, especially if it’s not in English, and this one in particular tells a really important and little-known story.

[talesofedo]

Modern people, reading about the Shinsengumi: "How is it possible that Soji was so sick with tuberculosis but nobody noticed or sent him away to recover until it was already really serious?"

Meanwhile, Kondo Isami explaining to Matsumoto Ryojun why half his men are laying around half-naked and their quarters and kitchens are a filty mess: "Don't mind them, they're all sick."

Yep, when nearly half your people are sick, it would be hard to notice Soji coughing, I suppose.

See the link below for Dr. M's exasperated note about his visit to the new Shinsengumi quarters at Nishi Honganji.

幕末の新選組40％が病人だった！近藤勇が頼った名医・松本良順が見た衝撃の屯所の実態 : Japaaan

1865（慶応元）年3月、新選組は壬生の八木邸から六条西本願寺北集会所へ屯所を移転しました。この屯所移転は、ほぼ1年前の1864（元治元）年6月の池田屋事件、7月の禁門の変における働きにより隊士が増えたことで、壬生屯所が手狭なったことが理由…