104 | December 2021 www.facs.website Yoshiyuki Kikuchi Yoshiyuki Kikuchi is an associate professor at the Department of British and American Studies, School of Foreign Studies, Aichi Prefectural University in Nagakute, Japan. Kikuchi obtained his PhD in History of Science, Technology and Medicine (2006) from the Open University, Milton Keynes, UK and did postdoctoral research at the Chemical Heritage Foundation (today’s Science History Institute) (2008-9), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2009-2011), Harvard University (20112012) and the International Institute for Asian Studies, Leiden (2012-2013). He taught at the Graduate University for Advanced Studies (Sokendai), Hayama (2013-2016) and Nagoya University of Economics, Inuyama (2017-2020) before taking up the current position. Kikuchi’s research focuses on the history of modern chemistry, especially physical chemistry, and AngloJapanese scholarly relations in scientific and technical fields. He is currently vicepresident of the Japanese Society for the History of Chemistry and vice-chair of the Commission on the History of Chemistry and Molecular Sciences, IUHPST/DHST. Yona Siderer Senior Researcher, Edelstein Center for the History and Philosophy of Science, Technology and Medicine, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. sideryon@ netvision.net.il Dr. Siderer was a recipient of a fellowship in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering from UNESCO and the Japanese Government. Holding Japanese fellowships she returned to Tokyo Institute of Technology (2008), and to Nichibunken, International Research Center for Japanese Studies in Kyoto (2009-2010) to study the history of chemistry in Japan. Dr. Siderer holds B.Sc. and M.Sc. in physical chemistry from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Ph.D. from the Weizmann Institute of Science and MBA from Tel Aviv University. She was a researcher in Israel, Japan, USA, Italy and England; studied Japanese in Japan and in Israel. Dr. Siderer published poetry books in Hebrew and English and poems in Japanese; presented her paintings in exhibitions in 1993, 2003, 2019. Former Head of the Israel-Japan Friendship Society; a member of the Israeli and the European Associations for Japanese Studies, and the Japanese Society for the History of Chemistry. THE HISTORY OF chemistry in Japan is a chronicle of how Japanese learned Western chemistry and contributed to its further development.2 The Meiji Restoration in 1868 is often credited as the starting point of Japan’s introduction to Western science. In fact, Japanese encounter with chemistry started earlier, in the early nineteenth century during the Tokugawa period (1603-1868). Medical doctors took the lead in the reception of chemistry because of their interest in the medicinal properties of chemicals. The development of manufacturing and military industries such as mining and smelting, pottery, brewing, dyeing, photography, and gunpowder manufacturing further stimulated Japanese interest in chemistry. Historical developments of chemistry in Japan thus reflected the process of Japanese modernization and industrialization that eventually led to its prosperity in the twentieth century.3 Translations and Chemistry in Tokugawa Japan In most of the Tokugawa period, the only Western country with which Japan had trade relationships was the Netherlands.4 Foreign traders were required to live in Dejima, an artificial fan-shaped island on the Nagasaki Bay. Overseas travel of common Japanese was strictly forbidden. For those reasons, until the mid-nineteenth century Japanese intellectuals studied Western science through translating Dutch books, hence the term “Dutch learning” (rangaku) for Western scholarship practiced in Tokugawa Japan.5 Pioneers in Dutch learning were mainly medical doctors by profession. The two most famous of them, Maeno Ryōtaku 前野良澤 (1723-1803) and Sugita Genpaku 杉田玄白 (1733-1817), were both physicians serving daimyos (feudal lords). They translated a Dutch illustrated book of anatomy, itself a translation from German, and published it as the Kaitai shinsho (“New book on anatomy”) in 1774.6 Medical doctors practicing Dutch learning started to pay attention to chemistry in the 1820s, copying and translating textbooks of chemistry as well as chapters on chemistry in pharmacopoeia in Dutch into Japanese. The culmination of this trend was the publication between 1837 and 1847 of the massive 21-volume Seimi kaisō (“Introduction to chemistry”) by Udagawa Yōan 宇田川榕菴 (1798-1846). Udagawa Yōan: The Creator of Chemical Nomenclature in Japanese Udagawa was a talented scholar who touched many topics during his lifetime. His work might be divided into three main categories: 1. Botany, 2. Chemistry, 3. Variety of other topics. He was a medical doctor serving the daimyo of the Tsuyama Domain in today’s Okayama Prefecture.7 In his youth, Udagawa studied Chinese Classics in the house of his teacher and adoptive father, Genshin. In 1826 Udagawa joined the translation office of the Tokugawa Shogunate, Bansho Wage Goyō that was established in 1811. He could choose appropr iate Chinese-Japanese characters to transfer the meaning of words from Dutch to Japanese. For the new ideas in chemistry, he tried to choose characters that would not have the connotation of, and would distinguish the terms from, Confucian thought on nature. Udagawa studied foreign languages, first A History of Chemistry in Japan 1820-1955
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