A.m.  Jour.  Pharm.i 
May,  1894.  j 
Calomel  in  Japan. 
233 
beginning  of  the  eighth  century,  having  then  been  presented  to  the 
Empress  Genmiyo ;  but  their  authority  is  the  Zokn  Nihongi,  refer- 
ence to  which  Professor  Haga,  F.C.S.,  informs  me  makes  it  clear 
that  mercury  itself,  not  its  chloride,  was  the  thing  presented. 
In  the  time  of  the  writers  above  named,  mercurous  chloride  was 
well  known  and  was  manufactured  in  Japan,  not  only  at  Isawa,  a 
village  in  Ise,  where  it  is  still  made,  but  also  in  the  city  of  Osaka 
and  in  a  town  near  it,  called  Sakai.  Mr.  H.  Kokubu,  manufacturer, 
tells  me  that  records  exist  at  Isawamuraof  his  family  having  carried 
on  the  manufacture  of  keifun  there  for  the  last  three  hundred  years. 
Far  earlier,  namely,  in  the  tenth  century,  Minamoto-no-Shitago, 
in  his  work  entitled  Wamiyo-Ruijusho,  makes  mention  of  a  mer- 
curial preparation  named  kofun  or  "  powder  of  mercury."  It  is, 
however,  questionable  whether  this  was  mercurous  chloride  or 
mercuric  oxide,  and  therefore  whether  calomel  was  known  or  not 
at  this  time.  But  since  calomel,  under  the  name  of  keifun,  is  men- 
tioned by  Chinese  writers  even  earlier  than  this,  it  may  be  safely 
accepted  that  Japanese  knowledge  of  this  body  is  older  than  ours  in 
Europe.  The  Western  knowledge  of  chloride  of  mercury  dates  from 
the  first  half  of  the  sixteenth  century,  but  the  distinction  between 
calomel  and  corrosive  sublimate  was  not  recognized  till  near  the  end 
of  that  century. 
Literary. — The  literature  on  Japanese  calomel  is  meagre.  Japan- 
ese writers  of  the  old  school  have  contented  themselves  for  the  most 
part  with  translating  Chinese  writings.  Ono  Ranzan  mentions  that 
the  Japanese  method  differs  from  the  Chinese,  in  making  use  of 
water  in  place  of  alum  and  other  chemicals,  in  which  he  came  near 
the  truth.  The  late  Dr.  Geerts,  a  Dutch  pharmacist,  who  in  the 
Government  service  did  much  in  establishing  Western  pharmacy  in 
Japan,  treated  of  keifun  in  some  metallurgical  contributions  he  made 
to  the  Transactions  of  the  Asiatic  Society  of  Japan.  What  he  wrote 
is  contained  in  Vol.  IV  (1875),  an<^  consists  of  information  almost 
exclusively  about  Chinese  calomel,  and  derived  more  from  Chinese 
and  Japanese  writings  than  from  any  experience  of  his  own. 
Concerning  Chinese  calomel  English  readers  have  the  Notes  on 
Chinese  Materia  Medica,  among  the  "  Science  Papers "  by  the 
late  Daniel  Hanbury,  F.R.S.,  edited  by  J.  Ince.  Hanbury  mentions, 
as  the  result  of  his  own  observation,  the  characters  of  kingfun  and 
its  great  purity  but  for  the  presence  of  minute,  transparent,  acicular 
