Philipp Franz von Siebold

Philipp Franz von Siebold

By Itsuo Kobayashi

Life of Siebold

Many Japanese may think Siebold was Dutch, but actually he was German. He was a physician, botanist and traveler. He was born into a family of doctors and professors of medicine in Wurzburg, Germany. He studied at Wurzburn University and became a medical doctor in 1820. He initially practiced medicine in Heidingsfeld, Germany. He was invited to the Netherlands by an acquaintance of the family and entered the Dutch military service in 1822. He was appointed ship’s physician on a frigate and traveled from Rotterdam to Batavia (present-day Jakarta) in the Dutch East Indies (present-day Indonesia). He stayed in Batavia for approximately two weeks and then was sent to Dejima, Japan. He arrived at Dejima in 1823. Siebold was pretending to be Dutch as he worked at The Hirado Dutch Trading Post.

Dejima is an artificial island next to Nagasaki. Foreign trade with the Netherlands was done through this small island. Siebold worked in Dejima as physician and scientist of The Hirado Dutch Trading Post. He gained permission to leave Dejima and treated Japanese patients in Nagasaki as well.

In 1824, Siebold started a medical school, Narutaki-jyuku, in Nagasaki. Around fifty students studied there. Among them were Takano Chouei, Ninomiya Keisaku and Ishii Souken. They were doctors and studied Western medical sciences from Siebold at this school. The Dutch language was a commonly spoken language for academic study there. Siebold was strongly interested in Japan, especially in Japanese plants and animals. His students helped him collect samples of the local flora and fauna. Siebold sent samples of these plants and animals to the Netherlands.

The Siebold Incident happened in 1828. Siebold obtained detailed Japanese maps through his acquaintance, Takahashi Kageyasu, who was an astronomer. Siebold tried to bring these maps to the Netherlands, which was strictly prohibited by the Japanese government in those days. Instead, Takahashi Kageyasu obtained the latest world maps and valuable foreign books from Siebold. However, Siebold’s attempt to bring the maps to the Netherlands was not successful. The ship that the Japanese maps were loaded onto was stranded on the Nagasaki coast due to a typhoon and the maps were found by Japanese government officials. As a result, Siebold was arrested and exiled from Japan in 1829. The other Japanese who were involved were also arrested and some of them were punished severely. Siebold was exiled from Japan and returned to the Netherlands in 1830.

In 1858, Japan signed the Treaty of Amity and Commerce（日蘭通商条約）with the Netherlands and Siebold’s banishment was rescinded. In 1859, almost 30 years after he left Japan, Siebold revisited Japan and became an advisor of the Tokugawa Shogunate for foreign policy. In 1862, he left Japan for the Netherlands and died in 1866 at the age of 70.

Discussion

Q1. Why was Siebold arrested and exiled from Japan?

One of the members in our group knew the reason. It was because Siebold tried to bring detailed Japanese maps to the Netherlands, which was strictly prohibited by the Japanese government in those days.

Q2. How do you think Siebold contributed to Japan and the Netherlands?

Our group members answered Siebold had taught medical sciences to the Japanese students at Narutaki-jyuku. I added the facts that Siebold introduced Japanese things and Japan to foreign countries by writing books such as Nippon, Flora Japonica and Fauna Japonica and by bringing samples of Japanese plants and animals.

Reflection

Through this project, I learned that Siebold had had a family in Nakasaki. Siebold didn’t get married, but he had a Japanese lover whose name was Kusumoto Taki. She was called Otaki-san. They had a daughter whose name was Kusumoto Ine. She was called “Oranda Oine オランダおいね”. Born in 1827 during the Edo era, of mixed heritage between the German Siebold and the Japanese Kusumoto Taki, Ine was discriminated against and struggled to become a doctor. She learned medical sciences from Ninomiya Keisaku and obstetrics from Ishii Souken. Both of them were Siebold’s students at Narutaki-jyuku. Kusumoto Ine became the first female doctor in Japan and worked as an obstetrician for decades in the Meiji era.

Siebold imparted European medical and surgical knowledge to Japan as well as exposing the world to Japan’s unique flora and fauna. Beukers (1997) stated that

“Von Siebold is well known in Japan: his teachings mobilized a small group of Japanese intellectuals to learn Dutch, to translate Western books on medical subjects, to establish schools and teach what they had learned, and to experiment with Western medical and surgical techniques. He is best known in the West for the information he brought back to Europe about Japanese flora and fauna.”

His museums such as the Siebold Memorial Museum in Nagasaki, Japan, and SieboldHuis in Leiden, the Netherlands, illustrate his achievements.


References

Beukers, H. (1997). The Mission of Hippocrates in Japan: The Contribution of Philipp Franz von Siebold. Amsterdam, the Netherlands: Four Centuries of Netherlands-Japan Relations. Retrieved 25 Dec. 2014, from project muse website: https://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/bulletin_of_the_history_of_medicine/v073/73.4jannetta.html

Philipp Franz von Siebold (1796-1866) collector in Japan. (n.d.). Retrieved 23 Dec. 2014, from Sieboldhuis website: http://www.sieboldhuis.org/en/hetsieboldhuis/siebold

The Life of Ph. Fr. von Siebold. (2013). Retrieved 23 Dec. 2014, from Nagasaki Web City Siebold Memorial Museum: http://www.city.nagasaki.lg.jp/kanko/820000/828000/p009222.html

Yoshimura, A. (1993). The daughter of von Siebold, Tokyo : Kodansha