(May 5th is Medicine Day) Were leaves and nuts saving lives? A gentle story about the origins of medicine (a gentle picture-book style article)

That small tablet contains thousands of years of history.

When we have a cold, a fever, or a stomachache.
We take medicine as a matter of course.

But have you ever wondered?
"What did people in the past do when they got sick?"

In an age without hospitals, pharmacies, or, of course, smartphones and the internet. Even then, people faced pain and preserved life.

May 5th is "Medicine Day." Let's take a look together at the long, gentle story hidden behind it.

1. What kind of day is Medicine Day?

The story of Empress Suiko and the herbs picked in the field

May 5th is "Medicine Day."

But even though it's the same day as Children's Day, it's not very well known, is it? What exactly is its origin?

It happened about 1,400 years ago—on May 5th, 611 AD. A record remains in the "Nihon Shoki" (Chronicles of Japan) that Empress Suiko went out to a field called Udano in Yamato Province (around present-day Nara Prefecture) and held a "medicine hunt" to pick medicinal herbs.

Articles about medicine hunts on May 5th can also be seen in the following years, and in later generations, this story came to be told as the origin of "Medicine Day."

Walking through fields and mountains to collect flowers and plants to make medicine to help sick people. That was the "way of dealing with medicine" 1,400 years ago.

In modern times, pharmaceutical-related organizations designated May 5th as "Medicine Day" in 1987 in honor of this story. Old memories are quietly connected to the present day.

2. The beginning of "medicine" must have been a coincidence

What did people in the past do when they had a stomachache?

Tracing the history of medicine takes us back to the distant past—tens of thousands of years ago.
Its beginning must have been a coincidence.

One day when they had a stomachache, they happened to eat a leaf and felt a little better. When they had a headache, they chewed on a plant growing by the river and felt it ease somewhat. When they applied mud to a wound, it stopped festering—.

Such an accumulation of realizations that "it somehow got better" may have been the beginning of medicine.

People in the past did not have the knowledge that "this is medicine" from the beginning. They only had the desire to ease pain and do something about their suffering.

That earnest wish was the first step that moved the history of medicine.

3. The answer was in nature

Leaves, nuts, soil... An era when fields and mountains were the "medicine chest"

For ancient people, the fields and mountains themselves were the medicine chest.

For example, there are records of willow bark being used to ease pain and fever since the times of ancient Egypt and ancient Greece. Later, as research progressed, the salicin contained in willow became one of the important clues leading to aspirin.

People in the past, even without knowing the logic, correctly sensed the power of nature.

In Japan, ginger has been cherished as something to warm the body, and mugwort and pickled plums have also been passed down as wisdom for caring for the body in daily life. In an era when the kitchen and the medicine cabinet were close, grandma's wisdom might have been a "natural pharmacology" polished over a long time.

Walking through fields and mountains to pick herbs. That was also about living while being taught by nature.

4. Medicine has been passed down from person to person

Wisdom passed down from mother to grandmother, from mouth to mouth

"If you decoct that herb and drink it, your fever will go down," "If you crush this root, the pain of the wound will ease"—such wisdom spread not through writing, but by being passed from person to person.

From mother to child, from village elder to youth, from traveler to traveler. A single discovery traveled to distant lands over the course of decades and centuries.

Eventually, when writing was born, that wisdom began to be recorded in books. Records about medicinal herbs, such as China's "Shennong Ben Cao Jing" and Japan's "Honzō Wamyō," were gradually left behind. The wisdom that had been passed from mouth to mouth began to be carved onto paper as well.

Perhaps Empress Suiko's medicine gathering was also one scene of such wisdom being passed down. Going out into the fields, picking herbs, believing in their power, and passing it on to the next generation—it feels very natural in that sense that an event from 1400 years ago remains today as "Medicine Day."

5. Over a very, very long time, medicine has grown

Trying, failing, and trying again... that accumulation leads to the present

The history of medicine was not just a smooth progression.

Things believed to be effective were actually meaningless. Things done with good intentions were actually bad for the body—there must have been countless such failures. Even so, people did not give up.

In the 19th century, technology to extract active ingredients from plants and other sources developed, and morphine and aspirin greatly advanced the path of modern pharmacology.

Furthermore, entering the 20th century, penicillin, discovered in 1928, greatly changed the treatment of infectious diseases. All of these were the results of scientifically unraveling why things found in nature were effective, starting from the question of "why does it work?"

Trying, failing, and trying again. That endless repetition created the medicine we have today.

In Japan, too, the culture of "uri-gusuri" (sold medicine) flourished during the Edo period, and medicine sellers from Toyama walked all over the country to deliver medicine.

The business mechanism of "Senyo Kori—use it first, pay later" tells the story that medicine was built on the trust of people.

6. Today's medicine is made of thousands of years of "thank yous"

How many stories are packed into that small tablet?

A small tablet that fits in the palm of your hand.

But inside that smallness, thousands of years of trial and error and countless people's thoughts are packed.

People who wanted to help those suffering. People who wanted to share the pain. People who wanted to leave wisdom for the next generation. And those who wanted to clarify "why it works"—.

From the era of Empress Suiko, who picked herbs in the fields, to modern pharmacologists who continue to research in front of microscopes. That long, long baton creates today's medicine.

When you take medicine, I think there are times you hope, "I hope this works." That is surely the same feeling as what the people who walked the fields and mountains long ago wished for.

May 5th, Medicine Day. Just for today, please pick up the medicine that is always there as a matter of course with a slightly special feeling. Surely, that small tablet will feel a little warmer.

The wishes of the people 1400 years ago who picked herbs in the fields and the medicine you take today are surely connected. (Text: Fuuta Chisato)

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