(1724 – October 4, 1800), also known as was a Japanese

physician A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...

and scholar of "Dutch studies" (''

Rangaku ''Rangaku'' (Kyūjitai: /Shinjitai: , literally "Dutch learning", and by extension "Western learning") is a body of knowledge developed by Japan through its contacts with the Dutch enclave of Dejima, which allowed Japan to keep abreast of Wester ...

''), and the chief Dutch translator in

Nagasaki is the capital and the largest city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. It became the sole port used for trade with the Portuguese and Dutch during the 16th through 19th centuries. The Hidden Christian Sites in the ...

, often accompanying

Dutch East India Company The United East India Company ( nl, Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the VOC) was a chartered company established on the 20th March 1602 by the States General of the Netherlands amalgamating existing companies into the first joint-stock ...

officials on missions to Edo and other official business. As a member of one of the five

samurai were the hereditary military nobility and officer caste of medieval and early-modern Japan from the late 12th century until their abolition in 1876. They were the well-paid retainers of the '' daimyo'' (the great feudal landholders). They h ...

families supported by the

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate (, Japanese 徳川幕府 ''Tokugawa bakufu''), also known as the , was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Tokugawa-jidai''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia ...

as hereditary official Dutch translators, Kōsaku vetted imported documents (Christian materials were prohibited in

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characteriz ...

Japan) and helped to keep the shogunate informed of global political matters. From roughly 1770 to 1800, he served as the chief mediator between the Dutch community on

Dejima , in the 17th century also called Tsukishima ( 築島, "built island"), was an artificial island off Nagasaki, Japan that served as a trading post for the Portuguese (1570–1639) and subsequently the Dutch (1641–1854). For 220 years, it ...

and the shogunate.Screech. p15. Kōsaku was quite prolific in his writings, and has been described as "perhaps ... the most knowledgeable person

n Japan N, or n, is the fourteenth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''en'' (pronounced ), plural ''ens''. History ...

about the West in his day." He maintained a Dutch style home and Dutch-style medical school, which at times enrolled up to six hundred students. Kōsaku wrote thirty-nine works, mostly on topics related to ''rangaku'', and mentored a number of students, including

Sugita Genpaku was a Japanese physician and scholar known for his translation of ''Kaitai Shinsho'' (New Book of Anatomy) and a founder of ''Rangaku'' (Western learning) and ''Ranpō'' (Dutch style medicine) in Japan. He was one of the first Japanese scholars ...

. In his writing, Kōsaku was critical at times of Japanese society, particularly in the attitudes and manners of the citizens of Edo, the shogunal capital. In conjunction with a journey to Edo in 1774, accompanying officials of the Dutch East India Company, Kōsaku wrote that Edo ought to serve as an example to the rest of the nation, and that the interests of the people of Edo were limited to the pursuit of profit. This document, included as part of a preface to the first integral translation of a European book to be published, was but one of many written by ''rangaku'' scholars at this time implying a need to rethink the Japanese attitude of Europeans as barbarians and of China as the only model for enlightened civilization.Screech. p32. Japanese scholars, officials, and artists visiting Nagasaki frequently made a point of visiting Kōsaku; his lectures and Dutch-style home attracted great interest. '' Ranga'' painter

Shiba Kōkan , born Andō Kichirō (安藤吉次郎) or Katsusaburō (勝三郎), was a Japanese painter and printmaker of the Edo period, famous both for his Western-style '' yōga'' paintings, in imitation of Dutch oil painting styles, methods, and themes ...

visited Kōsaku in 1788, stayed at Kōsaku's home for a few nights, and was given a tour of Dejima. A portrait he painted on that occasion depicting Kōsaku, partially in the style of Western oil paintings and partially in Japanese ''

ukiyo-e Ukiyo-e is a genre of Japanese art which flourished from the 17th through 19th centuries. Its artists produced woodblock prints and paintings Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surfac ...

'' style, survives today. The diaries of physician Tachibana Nankei, who also stayed at Kōsaku's Dutch-style home for a time, include descriptions of that home. The house featured a Dutch-style lie-down bathtub, a Western-style green-painted staircase rather than the unpainted, ladder-like stairs typical of Japanese homes, window drapes, and chairs which Nankei described as "grueling" to sit on, being more used to sitting on a

tatami A is a type of mat used as a flooring material in traditional Japanese-style rooms. Tatamis are made in standard sizes, twice as long as wide, about 0.9 m by 1.8 m depending on the region. In martial arts, tatami are the floor used for traini ...

floor. Kōsaku also maintained a collection of European books, paintings, and other objects such as eyeglasses and mirror paintings.Screech. pp154-155.

References

*Screech, Timon. ''The Western Scientific Gaze and Popular Imagery in Later Edo Japan: The Lens Within the Heart''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. {{DEFAULTSORT:Yoshio, Kosaku Rangaku Officials of the Tokugawa shogunate Japanese translators Translators from Dutch 1724 births 1800 deaths 18th-century Japanese translators