This is a peculiar little volume.  All scholars of the Tokugawa period in Japanese History as well as historians of Japanese medical science have for over a century recognized the significance of Rangaku kotohajime.  Its vivid descriptions of the scientifically liberating anatomical dissection at Kotsugahara in April, 1771 has been given special attention in Boxer's Jan Compagnie in Japan 1600-1850, Keene's The Japanese Discovery of Europe, and my own The Dutch Impact on Japan (1640-1853).  In fact, a previous translation (unmentioned in this work), from Japanese to German, appeared in an early issue of Monumenia Nipponica ¹.

Now, the eminent types listed as translators and supervisors of this particular publication plus a certain Mrs. Hazel H. Gorham, who for some reason is omitted from the title page but is mentioned in the "acknowledgement," have somehow combined forces and have produced this minimally annotated rather poor translation.  While the burden of the "poverty " of this translation must call heavily on the recurrent "Japlish" of the book, it must be pointed out that the title itself is a gross mistranslation.  "Rangaku kotohajime" literally means "Facts about the Beginning[s] of Dutch Studies,"  and no matter how it is stretched simply can not be read as the "Dawn of Western Science in Japan."

The potential value of a careful translation of Rangaku kotohajime is certainly high.  One can envision using it in a course on Tokugawa History or having it read by students in a colloquium in Tokugawa Intellectual History.  Nevertheless, this particular edition is certainly not the choice I would want to make.  Despite the thirty pages of introduction, for example, there is no serious attempt by any of the multiple authors to explain with scholarly care the place of Dutch studies in the intellectual milieu of the Tokugawa Period.  Moreover, the overly brief "brief biography" of Sugita Gempaku by Ogata Tomio reads much like the stilted literal translation of a typical entry in a Japanese biographical dictionary - which, in turn, is characteristically in the Chinese tradition of a compilation of bare facts plus appropriate obeisances to the subject of the biography.

As for the translation itself, it suffers from all of the usual errors - omission of articles, mischoice of words, confusion of singular and plural, etc. - which have long plagued Japanese students of English.  My favorite example (and the selection was not easy) is on p. 32:

Ryotaku, very much elated, said, "For good purpose, do not tally,' the proverb says ..."

There are so many marvelous possibilities in this that I urge each reader to exercise his own judgment as to the intended meaning of the sentence quoted.

With the truly high level of translation from Japanese to English we have come to know in the United States, when will Japanese publishers recognize that the kind of "amusing" efforts which often caused mocking reactions in the 1930s are no longer valid?  We do need to know much more of the remarkable influence of Dutch studies in Japan as part of the preparation of the Japanese for the impressive "modern century" which has only just ended.  But surely books like this one can only be of disservice.

Grant K. Goodman

University of Kansas

[1] Mori, Koichi (tr.), "Rangaku Kotohajime von Sugita Gempaku (1733-1818)," Monumenta Nipponica, V (1942), 144-166, 215-236.