A doctor named Kanzan Nosaka lived in Saijo Cho Jike about 200 years ago (in the Edo Period). He succeeded his late father and became a doctor at the age of 24. At that time, many people used to die from ongoing famine and the infectious diseases that followed.
An infectious disease called cholera broke out in Saijo Cho in 1822, when Kanzan was 37 years old. The cause of the disease was unknown, so people could not be treated well.
　One day, Kanzan came up with an idea of helping people with a medicine that prevents cholera. He told the village mayor, “The disease will continue to spread if we don’t do anything. Fortunately, I have money that I saved. Let’s use this money to buy preventive medicine and distribute it. I want to do something useful for the people who helped me.” The village mayor accepted his offer, and Kanzan distributed 15,000 doses of preventive medicine in Saijo starting with poor villages, and continued providing treatment. As a result, cholera disappeared little by little.
 

 


Kanzan was highly praised as a doctor and became the official doctor of Hiroshima Han in 1834. There was a severe famine three years later and measles broke out, killing 100,000 people in Hiroshima Han.
　To nourish hungry people, Kanzan made recipe books of edible wild plants and distributed them.
　Kanzan Nosaka helped the sick and the poor with love.
He passed away in 1840 at the age of 56.

 
Challenge: Make Waramochi
During the great famine in 1837, Kanzan wrote recipe books featuring 66 plants and distributed them in villages. Let’s try to make Waramochi, which is presented in the book.