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Aoki Konyō

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Aoki Konyō
青木昆陽
portrait of Aoki Konyō
Born(1689-06-19)June 19, 1689
DiedNovember 9, 1769(1769-11-09) (aged 80)
Shimomeguro, Edo, Japan
NationalityJapanese
Aoki Konyō grave at Ryusen-ji, Tokyo
Sweet Potato Monument at Koishikawa Botanical Gardens

Aoki Konyō (青木昆陽) (June 19, 1698 – November 9, 1769) was a Confucian scholar, minor hatamoto and pioneer rangaku scholar in early Edo period Japan. He is also credited with introducing the cultivation of sweet potato to many parts of Japan.

Biography

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Aoki was born in the Nihonbashi district of Edo, as the first and only son of the commission fishmonger Tsukudaya Han’emon[1]. Nothing is known about his childhood or early education. He later studied Confucianism for two years in Kyoto under Itō Tōgai, the son and successor of the Confucian philosopher Itō Jinsai. He returned to Edo in 1722 and opened a small Confucian school.[1]

In 1733, he was given access to the Tokugawa shogunate's library, the Momijiyama-bunko, within Edo Castle through the intercession of Ōoka Tadasuke, the Edo machi-bugyō. During the middle of the Edo period, Japan frequently suffered from crop failures caused by inclement weather and natural disasters, resulting in widespread famine and political and social unrest. This included the Kyōhō famine of 1732 to 1733, which resulted in a population loss of 20% in some areas of western Japan.[2]

However, it came to Aoki's attention that the island of Ōmishima in the Seto Inland Sea had largely escaped the effects of the famine as the islanders had planted a new type of sweet potato which had been grown in Satsuma Province since 1711. This new Satsuma-imo had arrived in Ming China from South America via the Philippines and to Satsuma from their overlordship over the Ryūkyū islands. Aoki wrote a treatise called "Thoughts on the Barbarian Yams" describing the new food source, which caught the attention of senior officials. He was appointed to an official post as "Satsuma-imo commissioner", thus making a change in status from a commoner to a samurai. In his new position he oversaw the successful cultivation of the new crop at the government's Koishikawa Botanical Garden and at experimental fields at villages called Makuwari (present day Hanamigawa-ku, Chiba) and Fudōdō (present day Kujūkuri, Chiba). The new crop proved to be an invaluable source of food in later famines. The village of Makuwari is now called Makuhari in what is now Chiba Prefecture, and the site of the experimental sweet potato field is a Chiba Prefectural Historic Site[3]

In 1739, Aoki was entrusted with the acquisition of books and writings for the Momijiyama-bunko, and in this position he gathered historical documents from Kai, Shinano, Mikawa Province, and other locations, which he copied and annotated under the title "Ancient writings in some provinces" (Shoshū komonjo).

In 1740, together with the doctor and herbalist Noro Genjō (野呂元丈, 1693–1761), he was assigned to learn the Dutch language. Since the middle of the 17th century, translation and interpretation between the Japanese and Dutch East India Company post at Dejima in Nagasaki has been a monopoly held by a small group of hereditary "Dutch interpreters" who were appointed and supervised by the local governor. Under the Shogun Tokugawa Yoshimune this monopoly was broken, and the official policy of the government changed to more intensively acquire and disseminate European technology. Aoki moved to Nagasaki for a short time and was able to master Dutch to the extent that he wrote introductions to the Dutch language and script and produced fragmentary translations from Dutch works on natural science and herbology. Although he not get beyond comparatively rudimentary language skills and rough translations, he became a model for other scholars and the forerunner of the field of study which was later termed rangaku.

In 1744 Aoki was appointed fire guard of the Momijiyama-bunko library. Three years later he was transferred to the Hyōjōsho, the senior council within the shogunal administration. In 1767 he was appointed administrator of the Momijiyama-bunko library.[4] Aoki died in 1769 during an influenza epidemic at the age of 72.

His grave at the temple of Ryūsen-ji in Meguro, Tokyo was designated a National Historic Site in 1943.[5][6]

Bibliography

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  • Shoshū komonjo, 諸州古文書
  • Banshokō, 1735 蕃薯考
  • Oranda bunyaku, 和蘭文訳
  • Sōro zatsudan, 1738 草盧雑談
  • Oranda moji ryakkō, 和蘭文字略考
  • Keizai sanyō, 経済纂要
  • Kansho no ki, 1745 『甘藷記』延享2年刊

References

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  • Sugimoto, Tsutomu: Aoki Konyō to rango no gakushū. In: Sugimoto T.: Edojidai rangogaku no seiritsu to sono tenkai II. Tōkyō: Waseda Daigaku Shuppanbu, 1977, S. 49–170 (杉本つとむ『江戸時代蘭語学の成立とその展開 II』早稲田大学出版部)
  1. ^ a b Goodman, Grant Kohn (2000). Japan and the Dutch, 1600-1853. Psychology Press. ISBN 978-0-7007-1220-5.
  2. ^ George Bailey, Sampson (1958). A History of Japan, 1715-1868. Stanford University Press. p. 170. ISBN 978-0-8047-0526-4.
  3. ^ "青木昆陽甘薯試作地" [Aoki Konyō Sweet Potato Test Site] (in Japanese). Agency for Cultural Affairs. Retrieved August 20, 2020.
  4. ^ Louis, Frédéric (2002). Japan Encyclopedia. Harvard University Press. p. 34. ISBN 978-0-674-01753-5.
  5. ^ Isomura, Yukio; Sakai, Hideya (2012). (国指定史跡事典) National Historic Site Encyclopedia. 学生社. ISBN 978-4311750403.(in Japanese)
  6. ^ "青木昆陽墓" [Aoki Konyō grave] (in Japanese). Agency for Cultural Affairs. Retrieved August 20, 2020.
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Extended content
Bastobasto/sandbox/japanhistory
Born1760
Nagasaki
DiedAugust 22, 1806(1806-08-22) (aged 45–46)
Nagasaki
NationalityJapanese
Occupation(s)Astronomer and translator

Shizuki Tadao (志筑 忠雄, born 1760, Nagasaki - died August 22, 1806, Nagasaki) was a Japanese astronomer and translator of European scientific works into Japanese.

Shizuki was adopted as a child into a family of translators from Dutch to Japanese, and in 1776 Shizuki began working in the family profession; however, in 1777 he stopped working in the family's tsuji tradition and began translating and writing commentaries on works of natural philosophy independently. He began using the name Ryuen Nakano, Nakano being his birth family name.

Shizuki apprenticed under Ryoei Motoki (who had translated and interpreted Copernicus's works) in Nagasaki, which at that time was a rare hub for Japanese intellectuals to obtain and discuss Western ideas. Motoki and Shizuki collaborated on translations of Dutch scientific treatises, and helped introduce and popularize Newtonian mechanics to Japanese scholars, as well as ideas about planetary motion and calendrics ultimately derived from Copernicus and Johannes Kepler. Shizuki's commentaries draw heavily from John Keill's, though Shizuki also generated his own ideas in his commentaries, and sought to reconcile Western philosophies of science with traditional Confucian metaphysical ideas. His best-known work was Rekisho Shinsho, or New Treatise on Calendrical Phenomena, which he completed in 1802 and which was heavily indebted to Keill's works, several of which Shizuki had already translated by that time.

Several of the Japanese terms that Shizuki used in translating Newtonian mechanical ideas, including those for gravity and centripetal force, were adopted into the Japanese scientific lexicon and remain in common use.

References

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  • Steven L. Renshaw and Saori Ihara, "Shizuki, Tadao". In Virginia Trimble, et al., ed. Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. Springer, 2007, p. 1056. (Google Books link)


Extended content
Willem ten Rhijne (Frontispiece by John Sturt in "Dissertatio de Arthritide ..." (1683)

Willem ten Rhijne (1647, Deventer – 1 June 1700, Batavia) was a Dutch physician and botanist employed by the Dutch East India from **** to **** as the physician in residence at Deshima. He is credited with introducing Japanese acupuncture and moxibustion to Europe through his writings.

Biography

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Early Life

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Willem ten Rhijne was born in Deventer. He had his first scientific education at the Illustre School in Deventer. In 1668, he studied at Leiden under the anatomist Johannes Hornius and the botanist and physician Florentius Schijl. Later, he studied at the Sorbonne. [1]

Career under the Dutch East India Company

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Hired as a physician by the Dutch East India Company, Ten Rhijne left for Asia in June 1673, supposedly called to Deshima

While giving medical instructions and taking care of high-ranking Japanese patients, ten Rhijne collected materials on Japanese medicine, especially on acupuncture and moxibustion.

In autumn 1676 he returned to Batavia where he continued to serve as a physician. In 1683 he published a book entitled "Dissertatio de Arthritide: Mantissa Schematica: De Acupunctura: Et Orationes Tres". His treatise on the art of needling which he called acupunctura was the first Western detailed study on that matter. He also wrote An Account of the Cape of Good Hope and the Hottentotes, which describes the lives of the Khoikhoi (then Hottentots) during the early days of Dutch settlement in the Cape as well as a pioneering book on Leprosy in Asia (Dutch: Asiatise Melaatsheid) and a treatise on tea that was published by Jakob Breyne.

Later life

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Works

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  • Disputatio medica de dolore intestinorum a flatu […] publicae medicorum disquisitioni subjicit Wilhelmus ten Rhyne […] Præs. F. de le Boe Sylvio. Lugduni Batavorum: apud viduam & haeredes Joannis Elsevirii, 1668
  • Exercitatio physiologica in celebrem Hippocratis textum de vet. med. Quam […] sub praesidio […] Francisci de le Boe Sylvii […] publico medicorum examini submittit Wilhelmus ten Rhyne […] ad diem [ ] Iunii, loco horisque solitis, ante mer. Lugduni Batavorum: apud viduam & haeredes Johannis Elsevirii, 1669.
  • Meditationes in magni Hippocratis textum XXIV de veteri medicina quibus traduntur brevis pneumatologia, succincta phytologia, intercalaris chymología &c.; cum additamento & variis hinc inde laciniis de salvium &c. Lugduni Batavorum: apud Johannem à Schuylenburgh, 1672.
  • Wilhelmi ten Rhyne Medici, Botanici & Chymici quondam Magni Imperatoris Japonicæ, nunc verò Medicinæ & Anatomiæ Professoris in Batavia Emporio Indiæ Orientalis celeberrimo Excerpta ex observationibus suis Japonicis Physicis &c. de Fructice Thee. Cui accedit Fasciculus Rariorum Plantarum ab eodem D.D. ten Rhyne In Promontorio Bonæ Speï et Saldanhâ Sinu Anno MDCLXXIII. collectarum, atque demum ex Indiâ Anno MDCLXXVII. in Europam ad Jacobus Breynium, Gedanensem transmissarum. In: Jacobi Breynii Gedanensis Icones Exoticarum aliarumque Minus Cognitarum Plantarum in Centuria Prima descriptarum Plantae Exoticae. Gedani: Rhetius, 1678 (pp. [VII] – XXV)
  • Wilhelmi ten Rhyne M.D. &c. Transisalano-Daventriensis Dissertatio de Arthritide: Mantissa Schematica: De Acupunctura: Et Orationes Tres. I. De Chymiae ac Botaniae antiquitate & dignitage: II. De Psysiognomia: III. De Monstris. Singula ipsius Authoris notis illustrata. Londini: imp. R. Chiswell ad insigne Rosae Corona, 1683.
  • Schediasma de promontorio bonae spei eiusque tractus incolis Hottentottis Wilhelmi ten Rhyne Schediasma de promontorio bonae spei eiusque ejusqve tractus incolis Hottentottis accurante, brevesque notas addente Henr. Screta S. a Zavorziz. Scafusii: Meister, 1686. (English trans.: An Account of the Cape of Good Hope and the Hottentotes, the Natives of that Country, 1704)
  • Verhandelinge van de Asiatise Melaatsheid na een naaukeuriger ondersoek ten dienste van het gemeen. Amsterdam 1687

Further reading

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  • Harold J. Cook: Matters of Exchange. Commerce, Medicine, and Science in the Dutch Golden Age. Yale University Press, New Haven CT u. a. 2007, ISBN 978-0-300-14321-8.
  • J. M. R. van Dorsson: Willem ten Rhijne. In: Geneeskundig Tijdschrift Voor Nederlandsch-Indie. Nr. 51, 1911, ISSN 0367-5394, S. 134–228.
  • Seiichi Iwao: A Dutch Doctor in Old Japan. In: Japan Quarterly. Vol. 8, No. 2, 1961, ISSN 0021-4590, S. 170-178.
  • Guizhen Lu, Joseph Needham: Celestial Lancets. A History and Rationale of Acupuncture and Moxa. Routledge Curzon, London u. a. 2002, ISBN 0-7007-1458-8.
  • Wolfgang Michel: Medicine and Allied Sciences in the Cultural Exchange between Japan and Europe in the Seventeenth Century. In: Hans Dieter Ölschleger (Hrsg.): Theories and Methods in Japanese Studies. Current State & Future Developments. Papers in Honor of Josef Kreiner. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Unipress, Göttingen 2007, ISBN 978-3-89971-355-8, S. 285–302 pdf.
  • Wolfgang Michel, Elke Werger-Klein: Drop by Drop. The Introduction of Western Distillation Techniques into Seventeenth-Century Japan. In: Journal of the Japan Society of Medical History. Vol. 50, 2004, No. 4, ZDB-ID 339806-7, S. 463–492, pdf.
  • I. Schapera (ed.): The early Cape Hottentots. Described in the writings of Olfert Dapper (1668), Willem ten Rhyne (1686) and Johannes Gulielmus de Grevenbrock (1695). The Van Riebeeck Society, Cape Town 1933, (Van Riebeeck Society Publications 14), (Reprint: Negro Universities Press, Westport CT 1970, ISBN 0-8371-3787-X).

References

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  1. ^ Goodman, Grant Kohn (2000). Japan and the Dutch, 1600-1853. Psychology Press. ISBN 978-0-7007-1220-5.