Martial Metaphors in Medical Texts

ARAKAWA Yohey

KEYWORDS: metaphors, medicine, war, martial frame, pacifism

Predominant metaphors in medical texts are exposed, beginning with 18th century views. Their analyses reveal two arguments by the author. First, medical metaphors in martial frames are motivated not only by similarities between medicine and war, but also by their temporal contiguity and their relations based on taxonomy. Given this assumption, human beings cannot avoid using such durable martial metaphors, although it is ironic that war, the source domain, inevitably takes human lives while medicine, the target domain, sets its goal to save lives. Second, we should utilize metaphors of pacifism, keeping our martial frame alive, with other alternative metaphors. In their wake, the author introduces pioneering discourses by Ekiken Kaibara, an early modern naturalist in Japan, and examines several metaphors of pacifism in his exemplary work "Yojokun".