Ninja, Ninjutsu and Herbalism (summary)
Lecturer: Yoshio Yamamoto
I presented a lecture titled "Ninja, Ninjutsu and Herbalism" to introduce the pharmaceutics and the herbalism of Ninja.
The practice of Ninjutsu and activities of Ninja are cultivated on strict and severe trainings. It is no exaggeration when I say keeping one's body healthy is at their foundation.
Unlike the present day, where we can easily pay visits to a doctor for any sickness or injury, in their times when it was hard to even find a doctor, Ninja utilized various common herbs that are easily found in their living environment, namely houttuynia, geranium herb or swertia herb for the treatment of sickness and injuries as well as maintaining heath.
Ninja also utilized poisonous herbs for assassination and mind controlling purposes. Though the records contain some uncertain examples such as narcotics with unknown effects, there are a lot of medicines with known effectiveness even in today's standards, including strychnos for killing watchdogs (poisonous substance: strychnine), Aconitum for assassination (poisonous substance: aconitine), and a mysterious drug called Aho Kusuri (literally, 'stupid drug'), which was hemp (poisonous substance: tetrahydrocannabinol). Strychnine was in use for getting rid of stray dogs up until 1975. Hemp is still being abused by many today, causing various incidents and accidents. Aconitum the assassinator still plays an important role every now and then in murder cases today. Thus, the Ninja herbalism is inherited to today's pharmaceutics.