History of homegrown Japanese science finally adds up

This is a good though somewhat old article from the Japanese times that tries to correct the false notion that scientific development in Japan stagnated during the Edo period, and that it wasn't until the Media restoration that Japan modernized its science.  Aside from the information in this article, I would go on to say that there had been many changes to Japanese society in terms of economics, infrastructure, laws, social organization, as well as scientific practices such as silviculture, as well as plantation forestry.  Much more needs to be said and will be said on this blog in a while for now I simply present excerpts from the article as well as a link.

Article snipped due to potential copyright issues. Please contact me if you own this article and need me to reduce the amount of material reproduced.

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https://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2003/08/10/general/history-of-homegrown-japanese-science-finally-adds-up/#.XBTlzLYZNxg

by Sumiko Oshima                                                                           Aug 10, 2003
Japan Times

Think Edo Period, and you think ukiyo-e, bonsai, yakimono and kabuki. Few think of science, or of the technological skill and spirit, which would later hatch Sony, Toyota and a core part of the country’s national identity. 

For a long time, little attention was paid to scientific and technological developments during the Edo Period (1603-1867). The typical historical account of Japan’s modernization went something like this: Scientific development stagnated under the rule of the Tokugawa due to the regime’s isolationist policy, which prevented the introduction of scientific knowledge from the West. But after a ban on the imports of foreign books was lifted in 1720, rangaku (“Dutch learning”) was spread across the country by young, ambitious scholars, so laying the groundwork for Japan’s modernization after 1868’s Meiji Restoration.

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This view is now challenged.

Take karakuri ningyo (mechanical dolls), for instance. From the early Edo Period, Japanese were fascinated with mechanical dolls used in puppet shows or exhibited in show tents. Surviving examples show how they are operated by elaborate internal systems that control their movements with clockwork, gears and stoppers. They could be powered by an uncoiling strip of whale baleen, or by the flow of water, mercury or sand.

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But according to science historians, these are not just dolls — they are the same kind of automata whose development in the West led to great strides in the modernization of science and technology.

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Another example of Japanese originality is offered by wasan (traditional Japanese mathematics). 

During the Edo Period, Japanese mathematical knowledge developed from the introduction of simple arithmetic from China. Mathematicians vied with each other in gidai keishoh, a custom according to which the one among them to publish a mathematical book would pose a problem at the end — to be solved by another mathematician who would in turn publish his own book and pose another question. This relay of questions and answers encouraged the presentation of new methods and theories which while appealing only to the intellectual curiosity of some mathematicians, helped others find applications in the field of astronomy or of land surveyance.

For example, a mathematician called Seki Takakazu developed a theory of determinants (square matrices used to solve simultaneous equations) which is more powerful than that of Leibniz and also predates the German’s work by at least a decade, according to physicist and science writer Tony Rothman who, in 1998, wrote about Edo Period mathematics in the magazine Scientific American.

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In contrast to the West, where scientific and technological knowledge was generally confined to social elites, such fields of interest were widely shared by the common people in Edo Period Japan, says Kazuyoshi Suzuki, a senior curator at the National Science Museum. “I think that’s the most characteristic feature of Japanese science and technology. Knowledge was not spread from the authorities, but filtered to the bottom of the society in a spontaneous manner.”

With a rise in interest in Edo Period science and technology, in 2001 the government launched “Edo no Monozukuri (Manufacturing in the Edo Period),” a five-year, 2.2 billion yen project involving more than 500 researchers from various fields that aims to further investigate and re-evaluate this “traditional” knowledge. The project includes the study of old, valuable objects in museums, private homes and antique lovers’ collections, as well as the creation of databases of objects and materials covering mathematics, astronomy, medicine, mining and machine-making.

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In the field of medicine, for example, it has been widely believed that Japanese medicine became modernized after the epoch-making publication by Sugita Genpaku and other doctors of “Kaitai Shinsho,” the first translation of a Western anatomy book. 

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However, recent studies have shown that Japanese made selective use of Western medicine and pharmaceutical knowledge much earlier. For example, Wolfgang Michel, a professor at Kyushu University, says that in the early 17th century, Japanese physicians used various Western treatments, including distillation techniques for producing pharmaceutical oils, and soon mastered the complex steps involved in mixing, separating and filtering.

“It was always the Japanese who took the initiative,” Michel said. “They ordered, requested, chose, introduced or rejected [Western medical knowledge]. The whole process of the introduction of Western medicine has to be reevaluated — including the pre-rangaku era.”

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