If you are a speaker of British English, you might be slightly confused if I’m talking about an adult female human with a child/ children or a preserved human body that could’ve been a mummy… or a daddy.
If you are a speaker of American English, you are right I meant a mummy by “mummy”.
The Egyptian kind of mummy, who could’ve been an Egyptian mummy before her passing (OK, I’ll stop annoying you!).
I recently learned a shocking fact about a Japanese medicine during the Edo period (1603-1868), and I couldn’t resist sharing this particular one!
Kaibara Ekiken* (貝原益軒 1630-1714) was a very well-known Neo-Confucianist philosopher (じゅがくしゃ 儒学者) and botanist who studied the medicinal herbs used in traditional Chinese medicine.
Ekiken is especially known for his books called Yojokun (ようじょうくん 養生訓), which was a collection of his health advice, and Yamato Honzo (やまとほんぞう 大和本草) that introduced medicinal plants from China and Japan.
Kaibara Ekiken* (貝原益軒 1630-1714)
In Yamato Honzo, mummies… or mummified human bodies probably from Egypt… are introduced as a medicine!!!
Mind you, Ekiken himself opposed to the use of mummies as a medicine for ethical reasons, but researches suggest that they were widely used as all-purpose cure though they cost a fortune.
We don’t know exactly where they were imported from (and how they were sourced), but it was likely to have been via China or Netherlands as Japan only traded with these two countries then. It could’ve also been from Korea (via Tsushima), Ainu (via Matsumae/ Hokkaido), or Ryukyu/ Okinawa. **
According to Yamato Honzo, mummies were good for toothache, headache, chest pain, high fever, antidote for poisonous insects, and others.
* Some people also call him “Ekken”.
** If you know the answer to this question, please comment below!!!
Reference
貝原益軒著「大和本草」記載のミイラの薬効について 江頭啓介・原敬二郎
Photo Credit
Yamato Honzo: Momotarou2012, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
English Rakugo NZ 
Ooooh how delightfully creepy, I love it. That is quite a quirky factoid and would love to put it into my next 10 Things I Found on the Internet post! I hope you are having a good weekend in sunny Auckland 🌞 😎
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