Reflections Paper One

Reflections of Paper One

The subject I choose was on Japanese medical knowledge on autopsy. The reason I chose this was the disconnect identified when reading “Sugita Gempaku - A Dutch Anatomy Lesson in Japan” (Reilly pg.743-746).  When I read how that there were different physicians that knew their knowledge of the human body was lacking, but failed to make the changes to correct them, made me wonder why.  Yes there was the closed society and the different social structural classes thing going on, but to know and not act seemed a bit eerie.  I needed to know why no changes had been made after the discovery of such knowledge.

It was not laziness, but an identification of “saving ones face” in a society where personal honor and family honor played such a big role in the daily lives of the Japanese people.  It is not known for how long the disconnects existed before being documented, but it was at least 17 years if the time frame of his father knowing of the disconnect and Sugita starting his official medical education.  If being taught by father-to-son, handing down knowledge a family tradition, where can one start to identify that the knowledge we have is not perfect, but it is the best we have.  I guess it was an honor thing being the shogunate personal physician and not knowing the internal body structure of the human body was an issue. The medical books were from China, and add insult to injury, there was tension between the two.  Being referred to as “barbarians” did not help at all.  This could have a factor in why the delay took so long to be remedied.

I need to make small points to support the subject.  I need to learn how to make it shorter and lighter to get the point across.

The “tweaks” I will make was in the sentence order structure.  Just because the sentence has all of the necessary information, does not mean it will draw a reader into the subject.  It just may be a dry and boring subject matter. When I read the rewrite, it flowed smoothly and sounded better than what I had first written.  A monotone reading will make you sleepy. 

I am sure that “works cited” will always be a danger zone for me.  I try to identify all of my sources and give credit where due, but sometimes thoughts come in where the information might be a convoluted jumble of sources.  Keep it simple.  Identify them all.