41

The History of Bioelectromagnetism

Kämper (1651–1716), physician and historian, who was born at Lemgo in the duchy of Lippe (now North

Rhine-Westphalia), Germany. Before coming to Dejima, he received excellent medical and humanis­

tic education. In 1690, he arrived at Dejima and got the position of physician at the Dutch East India

Company. Tere, he taught Western medicine. In 1691 and 1692, he accompanied the annual tribute mis­

sion by the Dutch East India Company chief to the Shogun court at Edo. Trough these mission jour­

neys, he obtained and described precise information about Japan. Trough the accurate and valuable

description of Japan, he introduced greatly Japan to the Europeans. In 1692, he returned to Europe from

Nagasaki via Batavia (now Jakarta). He then published the two-volume book History of Japan which was

the frst systematic introductory work about Japan.

Te third person is Philipp Franz Balthasar von Siebold (1796–1866). He was born in Würzburg,

Germany. Afer studying medicine at the university there, he entered the Dutch government service as

an army doctor. In 1823, he was appointed physician at Dejima. Tere, he taught Western natural and

medical sciences and physics during his 5 year stay in Japan. In particular, he established a boarding

school, Narutakijuku, at Narutaki (a suburb of Nagasaki). Tere, he also treated Japanese patients. In

exchange for Dutch books, he got a map of Japan from Kageyasu Takahashi (1785–1829), the shogunate

astronomer. Te map of Japan was made by Tadataka Ino (1745–1818), the famous cartographer and land

surveyor. In 1830, Siebold returned to the Netherlands and settled at Leyden. Afer 30 years, in 1859, he

returned to Japan with his son Alexander George Gustav von Siebold (1846–1911), a German interpreter,

and worked for 2 years on behalf of the Dutch East India Company (Reischauer and Tsuru, 1983). Siebold

contributed importantly to the development of Japanese science through teaching Western science in

the Edo period. His collection of Japanese materials became the foundation of the National Museum of

Ethnology at Leyden.

Although the above three persons had encyclopedic knowledge about Japan, there were many other

European who taught Western science to the Japanese. Below, three famous Japanese persons in the Edo

period are introduced. Gennai Hiraga (1728–1780) was born as a lower-rank samurai in Sanuki province

(now Kagawa Prefecture), Shikoku. He was known as being a scholar, scientist, geologist, artist, etc.,

and has been described as being the “Leonardo Da Vinci of Japan.” He went frst to Nagasaki in 1752, in

order to study Ran-gaku for 1 year. Around 1770, he obtained a broken rubbing electrostatic generator at

Dejima. Afer some years of efort, he restored it to its original state, a kind of Leyden jar, which he later

called “Elekiteru” in Japanese (Figure 2.6). Using this restored Elekiteru, he gave shocks and electrical

discharges to humans as an advertisement. He killed his disciple with a sword and died in prison in 1780.

During Hiraga’s times, Japanese industries were not developed enough to use an electrostatic generator.

Afer about 60 years since Nollet’s many-person train discharge chain shock experiment in 1746 and

from Franklin’s kite experiment in 1752, Sokichi Hashimoto (1763–1836) conducted the same experi­

ments. He was born in Osaka as the son of a small merchant. In his childhood, he was educated in

Ran-gaku. Afer learning Ran-gaku, he started his carrier as a physician. During translating the Dutch

books into Japanese, he obtained knowledge of electricity and read about the kite experiment carried

out by Franklin including many other experiments on static electricity. Following these Dutch books, he

confrmed by himself static electricity (Hashimoto, 1984). One of which was the replication of Franklin’s

kite experiment. Under his leadership, Kikuta Naka, pupil of Hashimoto, used a pine tree with 40 m

height (Figure 2.7), and then they proved that a thunder is electricity. As an advertisement, Hashimoto

demonstrated shock experiments as shown in Figure 2.8. Tis was the Japanese version of Nollet’s fan­

tastic demonstration of the many-person train discharge chain shock by a Leyden jar.

Te third person is Shozan Sakuma (1811–1864), who was born as the son of the middle-class samurai

in Shinano province (now Nagano prefecture) and was known as a scholar and politician. He started to

study Ran-gaku when he was 33 years old. Trough the study of Ran-gaku, he learned about electricity

and developed Japan’s frst telegraph and seismometer, electrical machines based on Elekiteru, and the

Daniel cell and medical instruments with electricity. He was a famous politician rather than scientist.

Tese historical and well-known Japanese persons gained knowledge about electricity through learning

Ran-gaku in the Edo period and made many experiments concerning electricity.