Yoshitora: Method of curing measles (hashika yojo no den) (Sold)

Artist: Utagawa Yoshitora
Title: Method of curing measles (hashika yojo no den)
Date: 1862/4 (4th month of Bunkyû 2/Dog Year)

A female patient sits on the futon mattress, talking to a young man. Both seem afflicted with red rashes. On the top left a Japanese god, probably Yamato Takeru-no-mikoto in a white robe is looking down the couple. Some Japanese gods and brave warriors are used in measles’ prints as a symbol which chases a measles god away. The text says: “A doctor said that measles is wide-spread this year and became a calamity of human life. From the first day the patient does not feel well, is thirsty and wants to drink...On the third day the patient becomes really sick. On the fifth or sixth day he has to stop eating. However no need to worry about until the tenth or twelveth day. Normally he feels better and recovers. However this year it is summer. High fever and diarrhoea attack him. After the recovery the important things is not to stand in the wind and to stay healthy and live long.” “The things bad for the patient: no sexual intercourse for 75 days, no bath for 75 days, no moxacautery for 75 days, no hair shavings for 50 days; Bad foods: river fish, pickled plums, burdocks, pumpkins, egg-plants and gourds, broad beans, taroes, miso for pickling, spicy foods, dried shiitakes, nori sea weeds, spinach, leeks, corns, all the oily stuff, and devil’s tongues. The things good to eat are: dried gourd shavings, carrots, white gourd melons, radishes, dried strips of radish, eels, sweet potatoes, ....liliy roots, pickles in miso, rice flour dumplings, dried noodles, wheat, azuki red beans, sugar, katakuri starch, green beans, yuba from sojabeans milk, old pickled radish, ...sea weeds, hijiki spindel-shaped bladder leaves. Make soft rice with roasted salt.”

Condition: Very good impression, color and condition.
Dimensions: ôban
Publisher: Sano-ya Tomigoro
Signature: Môsai Yoshitora ga

SKU: MED025