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Aoki Konyōedit
  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. BiographyeditAoki 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was entrusted with the acquisition of books and writings for the Momijiyama-bunko, and in this position he gathered historical documents from Kai, Shinano, Mikawa Province, and other locations, which he copied and annotated under the title "Ancient writings in some provinces" (Shoshū komonjo).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] Bibliographyedit
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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. Referencesedit
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 Willem ten Rhijne (1647, Deventer – 1 June 1700, Batavia) was a Dutch physician and botanist. He was employed by the Dutch East India from **** to **** as the physician in residence at Deshima. BiographyeditEarly LifeeditWillem 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 CompanyeditLater lifeeditWhile 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. Worksedit
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