PubMed2005
Miki Sakae was a Medical historian, who is well known for his studies of Korean medicine. He authored the renowned trilogy which dealt with subjects of Korean medicine and diseases, namely the "History of Korean Medicine and of Diseases in Korea", "Bibliography of Korean Medical Books", and "The Chronological Table of Medical Events in Korea"), during the Japanese Occupation period. He was born in 1903 in Osaka, Japan, and graduated from the Kyushu College of Medicine. In 1928 he was assigned to the Gyeongseong Imperial University's College of Medicine as a professor, and also served as Chief of the Suweon Provincial Hospital while he was staying in Korea. During the 18-year period of his stay, he widely collected medical books of Korea and also thoroughly studied them. He returned to Japan in 1944 due to the illness of his father, but continued his studies of Korean medicine, and in 1955 published the "History of Korean Medicine and of Diseases in Korea" for the first time. Following such accomplishment, "Bibliography of Korean Medical Books" was published in 1956, the next year, and finally "The Chronological Table of Medical Events in Korea" was published a few decades later, in 1985. Since the 1950s, aside of continuing to study and author the history of Korean medicine, he had also engaged himself in a joint effort associated with the members of the Medical History Association of Japan (which also included the alumni of the Kyushu College of Medicine) in a group study of Huseya Soteki, the first Japanese Experimental Physiologist. He also attempted at establishing an academic branch which could be referred to as Experimental Historical Studies of Medicine, by recreating the experiments of Huseya Soteki with his own son. Later he also expanded his interest and studies to the medical history of the world and also the area of Medical Ethics. But his ultimate interest and passion were always targeted at the Medicine of Korea, and the one consistent position he maintained during his entire life regarding the Korean medicine, was that 'One can only talk about the medicine of China and Japan when he or she is well versed in the medicine of Korea'. And his lifetime achievement, "History of Korean Medicine and of Diseases in Korea" was authored upon the basis established by such conviction and philosophy. First, in this book the perspective of Cultural Transmission, which considers the flow of cultural qualities and assets to be ordinarily flowing from highly developed regions to less developed ones, was firmly maintained. He argued that the medicine of China had to pass through the Korean peninsula to reach Japan. Second, he suggested that studies of medicine and diseases could only be fully and thoroughly understood when it is approached not only from the perspective devised by medical historical studies but also from perspectives devised for general and total historical examination of human life events. And third, he argued that all historical studies should be based upon proofs and evidences, and the 'development' factor of a particular type of studies or practices should be measured by whether that study or practice has reached or accomplished the level of Western modern science. Demonstrating such conviction, out of Korean traditional medical practices he particularly examined the medical procedures of treating tumors or regulations and procedures developed for forensic medicine, which he considered superior to or at least at the same level with Western medicine. In his final years he was forced to battle cancer, but he refused to be hospitalized. Instead, he exhibited his firm belief that medicine and medical practices which believe in the ultimate power of human body and soul are what the practitioners should pursue in order to acquire the very core of medicine. He died in 1992, at home, surrounded by his family. He is known to have always uttered that one of the most celebrated Medical books of Korea, the "Dongeui Bogam" authored by Heo Jun, was a true example of a book containing 'Medicine Based upon Human Body and Soul'. A huge portrait of Heo Jun is reported to have been hung at the living room of his house all the time.