Title at beginning of text: Jushikei Hakki [trans.: Expression of the Fourteen Meridians]; [alternate title on first leaf of first Preface]: Shinkan Jushikeiraku Hakki [trans.: Newly Edited Expression of the Fourteen Meridians] by KATSU, Ju (Chinese name: HUA, Shou)

16 full-page woodcut illus. in the text. 69 folding leaves. Three parts in one vol. Large 8vo, orig. orange wrappers (rubbed & a little tired, some browning), new stitching. From the colophon: Kyoto: Baiju, 1625. The second of the three editions of Katsu's Jushikei Hakki to be printed by moveable type in Japan; all are of the greatest rarity and none are located in WorldCat. These editions (1618, our edition of 1625, and 1631) mark the first appearances of Katsu's important text on acupuncture in Japan and are important examples of the new technology imported from Korea. The three editions are all printed in Chinese with Japanese reading marks. "The earliest surviving books printed [in Korea] with movable type date from the late fourteenth century...During the invasion of the Korean peninsula undertaken by Toyotomi Hideyoshi in the closing years of the sixteenth century...large numbers of printed books were looted, and printing type was removed from the Printing Office and taken to Japan...It appears that Korean type was immediately put to use to printed the text of the...Kobun kokyo (Classic of Filial Piety) in 1593, although no copies of this appear to have survived. In 1597, in the postface to another work printed in Japan with movable type, a monk who was present at Hideyoshi's headquarters acknowledged that typography in Japan had come from Korea. It was not clear whether any Korean printing artisans came to Japan as well as a result of the invasion, but in any even the impact on Japan of Korean typography, both technologically and intellectually, was far greater than that of the Jesuit Mission Press, principally because the imported Korean typography was much closer to the centres of power in Japan than the increasingly precarious Jesuit missions."-Kornicki, The Book in Japan, p. 129. Moveable type printing in Japan came to an end by the 1650s (although revived again at the end of the 18th-century). Katsu (whose Chinese name is Shou Hua), was a Chinese physician active 1360-70. He published Shi si jing fa hui, translated as "Routes of the Fourteen Meridians and their Functions," a classic used in the practice of acupuncture. To the twelve standard meridians, Katsu was the first to add two extra meridians, the "governor vessel" (du mai) and "conception vessel" (ren mai); the fourteen meridians then became the standard major meridians in most schools of clinical application. The work is divided into three parts: the first dealing with the circulation of the yin and yang in the arms and legs; the second with the course of the qi, which gives life energy to the body and protects it from illness, pain, and disease through the fourteen meridians; and the third with the eight "extraordinary vessels." The publisher was a doctor known as Baijuken (who may have been the same person as the Kyoto commercial publisher known as Baiju Joemon). He was active for around thirty years and more than thirty medical books published by him have been identified. Most of his publications are Chinese works. The sixteen full-page woodcut illustrations explain the centers for acupuncture. This edition has four prefaces: 1. by Sei Oyo Shiken, dated 1528; 2. by So Ren, not dated; 3. by Ryo Fuku, dated 1364; and 4. by the author, Katsu Ju, dated 1341. The text has been annotated throughout in red and black with additional readings. A few minor stains and natural paper flaws but in very nice condition internally. Some dampstaining in upper margins, occasionally touching text. We cannot locate any other copy of the 1618 edition nor of our edition; there is one copy of the 1631 edition at the Iwase Bunko Library.