Sugita Genpaku

Sugita Genpaku was a physician serving the Obama Domain and one of the leading pioneers of Rangaku, or Dutch studies, in eighteenth-century Japan. Working with Maeno Ryōtaku, Nakagawa Jun’an and others, he helped translate a Dutch edition of a European anatomy text into Kaitai Shinsho, published in 1774. He later taught students at his private school and recorded the difficulties of the translation movement in Rangaku Kotohajime.

In David Mitchell’s The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, Sugita appears within the medical and scholarly world surrounding Dejima. His account of translating Western anatomy anchors Orito Aibagawa’s fictional training in the real movement through which Japanese physicians and interpreters adapted Dutch books, terminology and practical knowledge.