was a

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

medical doctor,

botanist Botany, also called plant science, is the branch of natural science and biology studying plants, especially Plant anatomy, their anatomy, Plant taxonomy, taxonomy, and Plant ecology, ecology. A botanist or plant scientist is a scientist who s ...

, and scholar of ''

rangaku ''Rangaku'' (Kyūjitai: , ), and by extension , is a body of knowledge developed by Japan through its contacts with the Dutch enclave of Dejima, which allowed Japan to keep abreast of Western technology and medicine in the period when the countr ...

'' (Western learning). He was a junior colleague of

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 scholar ...

, with whom he studied and worked in

Obama Domain The was a '' Fudai'' feudal domain of the Edo period of Japan. It is located in Wakasa Province, in the Hokuriku region of the island Honshū. The domain was centered at Obama Castle, located in the center of what is now the city of Obama in ...

Wakasa Province was a province of Japan in the area that is today the southwestern portion of Fukui Prefecture in the Hokuriku region of Japan. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Wakasa''" in . Wakasa bordered on Echizen, Ōmi, Tanba, Tango, and Yamash ...

, a center for Western medicine in

Edo period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. Along with Sugita and Maeno Ryōtaku　(前野良沢), Nakagawa prepared ''

Kaitai Shinsho is a medical text translated into Japanese during the Edo period. It was written by Sugita Genpaku, and was published by Suharaya Ichibee () in 1774, the third year of An'ei. The body comprises four volumes, the illustrations, one. The conten ...

'', a translation of the Dutch "New Book of Anatomy." Nakagawa was very active in circles of ''rangaku'' scholars, and is said to have played an important role in the field's progression and advancement.

Life

Not much is known about Nakagawa's early life, but his grandfather is believed to have also been a ''rangaku'' scholar in Obama. Nakagawa grew up in the

Kōjimachi is a district in Chiyoda, Tokyo. History Prior to the arrival of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the area was known as . The area developed as townspeople settled along the Kōshū Kaidō. In 1878, the Kōjimachi area became , a ward of the city of Tokyo. ...

area of

Edo Edo (), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. Edo, formerly a (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the '' de facto'' capital of Japan from 1603 as the seat of the Tokugawa shogu ...

(modern-day

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

), and studied botany under Tamura Ransui (田村藍水). He developed a strong interest in Dutch products, science and culture, and visited the Dutch trading post at

Dejima or Deshima, in the 17th century also called , was an artificial island off Nagasaki, Japan, that served as a trading post for the Portuguese (1570–1639) and subsequently the Dutch (1641–1858). For 220 years, it was the central con ...

Nagasaki , officially , is the capital and the largest Cities of Japan, city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. Founded by the Portuguese, the port of Portuguese_Nagasaki, Nagasaki became the sole Nanban trade, port used for tr ...

a number of times, where he also studied the

Dutch language Dutch ( ) is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, spoken by about 25 million people as a first language and 5 million as a second language and is the List of languages by total number of speak ...

. During his time as Tamura's pupil, Nakagawa became quite involved in the ''rangaku'' community. He helped revise some of

Hiraga Gennai was a Japanese polymath and ''rōnin'' of the Edo period. He was a pharmacologist, student of ''Rangaku'', author, painter and inventor well known for his '' Erekiteru'' (electrostatic generator), ''Kandankei'' (thermometer) and ''Kakanpu'' ...

's works, including a

taxonomic 280px, Generalized scheme of taxonomy Taxonomy is a practice and science concerned with classification or categorization. Typically, there are two parts to it: the development of an underlying scheme of classes (a taxonomy) and the allocation ...

work called ''Butsurui Hinshitsu''. He also helped in the development of such technologies as fire-resistant cloth and thermometers. Nakagawa began corresponding with

Carl Peter Thunberg Carl Peter Thunberg, also known as Karl Peter von Thunberg, Carl Pehr Thunberg, or Carl Per Thunberg (11 November 1743 – 8 August 1828), was a Sweden, Swedish Natural history, naturalist and an Apostles of Linnaeus, "apostle" of Carl Linnaeus ...

in 1776. He met and studied with the Swedish botanist that same year in Edo, exploring the fields of

natural history Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is cal ...

and learning how to take and analyze plant and mineral samples. Nakagawa died in 1786, possibly from

stomach cancer Stomach cancer, also known as gastric cancer, is a malignant tumor of the stomach. It is a cancer that develops in the Gastric mucosa, lining of the stomach. Most cases of stomach cancers are gastric carcinomas, which can be divided into a numb ...

References

*''This content is derived from that of the corresponding Japanese Wikipedia article.'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Nakagawa, Jun'an 1786 deaths 1739 births 18th-century Japanese botanists 18th-century Japanese physicians Rangaku