was a Japanese civil servant and naturalist. Born to a doctor of

Traditional Chinese Medicine Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is an alternative medical practice drawn from traditional medicine in China. It has been described as "fraught with pseudoscience", with the majority of its treatments having no logical mechanism of acti ...

in Iida, Shinano Province, Tanaka studied pharmacognosy in his youth with Keisuke Ito. In 1861 he moved to Edo and joined the ''Bansho Shirabesho'' (Office for the Investigation of Foreign Documents) the following year. In this job, he worked on the documentation of local produce. He was part of the Japanese delegation at the 1867 ''Exposition Universelle'' in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

, where he exhibited a number of

entomological Entomology () is the scientific study of insects, a branch of zoology. In the past the term "insect" was less specific, and historically the definition of entomology would also include the study of animals in other arthropod groups, such as arach ...

specimens; this journey also gave him the opportunity to learn about Western museum curation. After the

Meiji Restoration The , referred to at the time as the , and also known as the Meiji Renovation, Revolution, Regeneration, Reform, or Renewal, was a political event that restored practical imperial rule to Japan in 1868 under Emperor Meiji. Although there were ...

, the Japanese Civil Service was reorganised. Within the ''Daigaku'' (later the Ministry of Education) Tanaka joined the Bureau of Local Products, and then moved to the Museums Bureau in 1871. A decade later, his services were sought by the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce to oversee the menagerie attached to the National Museum of Natural History; Tanaka took advantage of the opportunity to create

Ueno Zoo The is a zoo, managed by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, and located in Taitō, Tokyo, Japan. It is Japan's oldest zoo, opened on March 20, 1882. It is served by Ueno Station, Keisei Ueno Station and Nezu Station, with convenient access fr ...

. Opened in 1882, it was Japan's first zoological park. The creation of the zoo resulted in Tanaka's promotion to Director-General of the Natural History Bureau, however he received little ministerial support for his botanical and zoological planning and resigned from the post the following year. In 1878 he helped to set up a school of agriculture in Komaba (which later became the

University of Tokyo , abbreviated as or UTokyo, is a public research university located in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Established in 1877, the university was the first Imperial University and is currently a Top Type university of the Top Global University Project b ...

's Faculty of Agriculture) and in subsequent years was responsible for the founding of several societies, including the ''Dainippon Nokai'' ("Greater Japan Agricultural Society"), the ''Dainippon Sanrinkai'' ("Greater Japan Forestry Society") and the ''Dainippon Suisankai'' ("Greater Japan Fisheries Society"). He also published several books on botany and agriculture. In 1890 he was elevated to the House of Peers and in 1915 he was granted the title of ''danshaku'' (baron). Tanaka died in 1916. The ''

Saxifragaceae Saxifragaceae is a family of herbaceous perennial flowering plants, within the core eudicot order Saxifragales. The taxonomy of the family has been greatly revised and the scope much reduced in the era of molecular phylogenetic analysis. The fa ...

'' species '' Tanakaea radicans'' is named after him.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tanaka, Yoshio Japanese civil servants 1838 births 1916 deaths 20th-century Japanese botanists Japanese naturalists Members of the House of Peers (Japan) People from Iida, Nagano 19th-century Japanese botanists