Abstract
This paper explores the philosophy of Ekiken Kaibara (1630-1714) pertaining to medical science and health care for the people. Kaibara was a confucianist and a herb doctor practicing in the mid Edo period, and gained fame for his excellent Yojo-Kun. His writings are extensive, and show that health care services for the people were flourishing at the time, although he considered that social pursuits were not sufficiently balanced among the three dimensions -physical, mental, and social -which he thought were essential for a healthy life.
When European medicine began to be introduced to Japan, all textbooks were written in Dutch. Although C.W. Hufeland's health book was first brought to Japan in 1824, a translation was not initially published. Hufeland was the foremost German scholar in Europe in the early part of the nineteenth century, and his book was translated into Japanese by teachers of Dutch learning at Bansho-shirabesho (the Tokugawa Shogunate's Western Learning Institute). The translators not only translated this book, but also made great efforts to explain the meaning of the words.
