Keeping it Fresh
 The book is a Japanese translation of a Western study of anatomy](https://micrio.thingsthattalk.net/YeBgK/views/max/640x640.jpg)
Katai Shinsho, 1774, National Diet Library The book is a Japanese translation of a Western study of anatomy
As mentioned earlier in the story, inrō were originally used as containers. So let’s open our inrō up, and focus on its practical use and how the decoration can relate to it. Inrō were traditionally used to contain medicines: their small compartments could be tightly closed, so they worked effectively in keeping the medications fresh.
Medical knowledge in Japan had been based on information introduced from China by Buddhist priests. With the arrival of the Portuguese, new medical knowledge was being introduced, and learning about European medicine continued after the Portuguese were expelled through the Dutch men present on the archipelago.
During their residence on Deshima, Dutch traders were the medium through which all kinds of European knowledge was imported into Japan. They brought in books on a variety of subjects, including cartography, botany, zoology, chemistry, astronomy and, of course, medicine. Because these subjects were introduced into the country in the Dutch language, they came to be called rangaku: the first part of the word stands for the name that the Japanese would call the Netherlands, oranda (オランダ), and the second one stands for gaku (学), meaning school, or study.
It seems especially befitting that a box destined to hold medicines would then depict a Dutch man and a Portuguese man, since they had such a role in the development of the medical field in Japan. But does the depiction elicit interest towards the contents of the inrō? And if those contents happened to be medicine, would it legitimize their efficacy?