Philipp Franz von Siebold | |
|---|---|
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| Born | (1796-02-17)17 February 1796 |
| Died | 18 October 1866(1866-10-18) (aged 70) |
| Occupations | Physician,botanist |
| Partner(s) | Kusumoto Taki, Helene von Gagern |
| Children | Kusumoto Ine,Alexander von Siebold,Heinrich von Siebold |
Jhr.Philipp Franz Balthasar von Siebold (17 February 1796 – 18 October 1866) was a Germanphysician,botanist and traveller. He achieved prominence by his studies of Japaneseflora andfauna. He was the father of the first female Japanese doctor educated in Western medicine,Kusumoto Ine.
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Born into a family of doctors and professors of medicine inWürzburg (then in thePrince-Bishopric of Würzburg, later part ofBavaria), von Siebold initially studied medicine at theUniversity of Würzburg from November 1815,[1] where he became a member of theCorps Moenania Würzburg. One of his professors wasFranz Xaver Heller (1775–1840), author of theFlora Wirceburgensis ("Flora of the Grand Duchy of Würzburg", 1810–1811).[1]Ignaz Döllinger (1770–1841), his professor of anatomy and physiology, however, most influenced him. Döllinger was one of the first professors to understand and treat medicine as a natural science. Von Siebold stayed with Döllinger, where he came in regular contact with other scientists.[1] He read the books ofHumboldt, a famous naturalist and explorer, which probably raised his desire to travel to distant lands.[1] Philipp Franz von Siebold became a physician by earning hisM.D. degree in 1820. He initially practiced medicine inHeidingsfeld, in theKingdom of Bavaria, now part ofWürzburg.[1]
Invited to Holland by an acquaintance of his family, von Siebold applied for a position as a military physician, which would enable him to travel to the Dutch colonies.[1] He entered the Dutch military service on 19 June 1822, and was appointed as ship's surgeon on the frigateAdriana, sailing fromRotterdam toBatavia (present-dayJakarta) in theDutch East Indies (now calledIndonesia).[1] On his trip to Batavia on the frigateAdriana, von Siebold practiced his knowledge of the Dutch language and also rapidly learnedMalay. During the long voyage he also began a collection of marine fauna.[1] He arrived in Batavia on 18 February 1823.[1]
As an army medical officer, von Siebold was posted to anartillery unit. However, he was given a room for a few weeks at the residence of the Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies, BaronGodert van der Capellen, to recover from an illness. With his erudition, he impressed the Governor-General, and also the director of the botanical garden at Buitenzorg (nowBogor),Caspar Georg Carl Reinwardt.[1] These men sensed in Von Siebold a worthy successor toEngelbert Kaempfer andCarl Peter Thunberg, two former resident physicians atDejima, a Dutch trading post inJapan, the former of whom was the author ofFlora Japonica.[1] TheRoyal Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences soon elected Von Siebold as a member.
On 28 June 1823, after only a few months in the Dutch East Indies, von Siebold was posted as residentphysician andscientist toDejima, a small artificial island and trading post atNagasaki, and arrived there on 11 August 1823.[1] During an eventful voyage to Japan he only just escaped drowning during atyphoon in theEast China Sea.[1] As only a very small number of Dutch personnel were allowed to live on this island, the posts of physician and scientist had to be combined. Dejima had been in the possession of theDutch East India Company (known as the VOC) since the 17th century, but the Company had gone bankrupt in 1798, after which a trading post was operated there by the Dutch state for political considerations, with notable benefits to the Japanese.
The European tradition of sending doctors with botanical training to Japan was a long one. Sent on a mission by the Dutch East India Company,Engelbert Kaempfer (1651–1716), a German physician and botanist who lived in Japan from 1690 until 1692, ushered in this tradition of a combination of physician and botanist. The Dutch East India Company did not, however, actually employ the Swedish botanist and physicianCarl Peter Thunberg (1743–1828), who had arrived in Japan in 1775.
Japanese scientists invited von Siebold to teach them western science. After curing an influential local officer, von Siebold gained the permission to leave the trade post. He used this opportunity to treat Japanese patients in the greater area around the trade post. Von Siebold is credited with the introduction ofvaccination and pathological anatomy for the first time in Japan.[2]
In 1824, von Siebold started a medical school in Nagasaki, theNarutaki-juku,[3] that grew into a meeting place for around fiftystudents. They helped him in his botanical and naturalistic studies. The Dutch language became thelingua franca (common spoken language) for these academic and scholarly contacts for a generation, until theMeiji Restoration.
His patients paid him in kind with a variety of objects and artifacts that would later gain historical significance. These everyday objects later became the basis of his largeethnographic collection, which consisted of everyday household goods,woodblock prints, tools and hand-crafted objects used by the Japanese people.
During his stay in Japan, von Siebold "lived together" with Kusumoto Taki 楠本滝,[1] who gave birth to their daughterKusumoto (O-)Ine in 1827.[1] Von Siebold used to call his wife "Otakusa" (probably derived from O-Taki-san) and named aHydrangea after her. Kusumoto Ine eventually became the first Japanese woman known to have received a physician's training and became a highly regarded practicing physician and court physician to the Empress in 1882. She died at court in 1903.[1][4]
His main interest, however, focused on the study of Japanese fauna and flora. He collected as much material as he could. Starting a small botanical garden behind his home (there was not much room on the small island) Von Siebold amassed over 1,000 native plants.[1] In a specially builtglasshouse he cultivated the Japanese plants to endure theDutchclimate. Local Japanese artists likeKawahara Keiga drew and painted images of these plants, creating botanical illustrations but also images of the daily life in Japan, which complemented his ethnographic collection. He hired Japanese hunters to track rare animals and collect specimens. Many specimens were collected with the help of his Japanese collaboratorsKeisuke Ito (1803–1901), Mizutani Sugeroku (1779–1833), Ōkochi Zonshin (1796–1882) and Katsuragawa Hoken (1797–1844), a physician to theshōgun. As well, von Siebold's assistant and later successor,Heinrich Bürger (1806–1858), proved to be indispensable in carrying on Von Siebold's work in Japan.
Von Siebold first introduced to Europe such familiar garden-plants as theHosta and theHydrangea otaksa. Unknown to the Japanese, he was also able to smuggle out germinative seeds oftea plants to the botanical gardenBuitenzorg in Batavia. Through this single act, he started thetea culture inJava, a Dutchcolony at the time. Until then Japan had strictly guarded the trade in tea plants. Remarkably, in 1833, Java already could boast a half million tea plants.
He also introduced Japanese knotweed (Reynoutria japonica,syn.Fallopia japonica), which has become a highly invasive weed in Europe and North America.[5] All derive from a single female plant collected by von Siebold.
During his stay at Dejima, von Siebold sent three shipments with an unknown number of herbarium specimens toLeiden,Ghent,Brussels andAntwerp. The shipment to Leiden contained the first specimens of theJapanese giant salamander (Andrias japonicus) to be sent to Europe.
In 1825 the government of the Dutch-Indies provided him with two assistants: apothecary and mineralogistHeinrich Bürger (his later successor) and the painterCarl Hubert de Villeneuve. Each would prove to be useful to Von Siebold's efforts that ranged from ethnographical to botanical to horticultural, when attempting to document the exotic Eastern Japanese experience. De Villeneuve taught Kawahara the techniques of Western painting.
Reportedly, von Siebold was not the easiest man to deal with. He was in continuous conflict with his Dutch superiors who felt he was arrogant. This threat of conflict resulted in his recall in July 1827 back to Batavia. But the ship, theCornelis Houtman, sent to carry him back to Batavia, was thrown ashore by a typhoon in Nagasaki bay. The same storm badly damaged Dejima and destroyed Von Siebold's botanical garden. Repaired, theCornelis Houtman was refloated. It left for Batavia with 89 crates of von Siebold's salvaged botanical collection, but von Siebold himself remained behind in Dejima.
In 1826 von Siebold made the court journey toEdo together with the Dutch ‘opperhoofd’ colonelDe Stürler. During this long trip he collected many plants and animals. But he also obtained from the court astronomer Takahashi Kageyasu several detailed maps of Japan and Korea (written byInō Tadataka), an act strictly forbidden by the Japanese government.[1] When the Japanese discovered, by accident, that Von Siebold had a map of the northern parts of Japan, the government accused him ofhigh treason and of being a spy forRussia.[1]
The Japanese placed von Siebold under house arrest and expelled him fromJapan on 22 October 1829.[1] Satisfied that his Japanese collaborators would continue his work, he journeyed back on the frigateJava to his former residence, Batavia, in possession of his enormous collection of thousands of animals and plants, his books and his maps.[1] The botanical garden ofBuitenzorg would soon house von Siebold's surviving, living flora collection of 2,000 plants. He arrived in the Netherlands on 7 July 1830. His stay in Japan and Batavia had lasted for a period of eight years.[1]
Philipp Franz von Siebold arrived in the Netherlands in 1830, just at a time when political troubles erupted inBrussels, leading soon toBelgian independence. Hastily he salvaged his ethnographic collections inAntwerp and his herbarium specimens in Brussels and took them toLeiden, helped byJohann Baptist Fischer.[1] He left behind his botanical collections of living plants that were sent to theUniversity of Ghent.[1] The consequent expansion of this collection of rare and exotic plants led to the horticultural fame ofGhent. In gratitude the University of Ghent presented him in 1841 with specimens of every plant from his original collection.
Von Siebold settled in Leiden, taking with him the major part of his collection.[1] The "Philipp Franz von Siebold collection", containing manytype specimens, was the earliest botanical collection from Japan. Even today, it still remains a subject of ongoing research, a testimony to the depth of work undertaken by von Siebold. It contained about 12,000 specimens, from which he could describe only about 2,300 species. The whole collection was purchased for a handsome amount by the Dutch government. Von Siebold was also granted a substantial annual allowance by the Dutch KingWilliam II and was appointedAdvisor to the King for Japanese Affairs. In 1842, the King even raised von Siebold to the nobility as an esquire.
The "Siebold collection" opened to the public in 1831. He founded a museum in his home in 1837. This small, private museum would eventually evolve into theNational Museum of Ethnology in Leiden.[6] Von Siebold's successor in Japan, Heinrich Bürger, sent him three more shipments of herbarium specimens collected in Japan. This flora collection formed the basis of the Japanese collections of theNational Herbarium of the Netherlands[7] in Leiden, while the zoological specimens Von Siebold collected were kept by theRijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie (National Museum of Natural History) in Leiden, which later became Naturalis. Both institutions merged intoNaturalis Biodiversity Center in 2010, which now maintains the entire natural history collection that von Siebold brought back to Leiden.[8]
In 1845 von Siebold married Helene von Gagern (1820–1877), they had three sons and two daughters.
During his stay in Leiden, Von Siebold wroteNippon in 1832, the first part of a volume of a richly illustrated ethnographical and geographical work on Japan. TheArchiv zur Beschreibung Nippons also contained a report of his journey to the Shogunate Court at Edo.[1] He wrote six further parts, the last ones published posthumously in 1882; his sons published an edited and lower-priced reprint in 1887.[1]
TheBibliotheca Japonica appeared between 1833 and 1841. This work was co-authored by Joseph Hoffmann and Kuo Cheng-Chang, a Javanese of Chinese extraction, who had journeyed along with Von Siebold from Batavia.[1] It contained a survey of Japanese literature and a Chinese, Japanese and Korean dictionary.[1] Von Siebold's writing on Japanese religion and customs notably shaped early modern European conceptions ofBuddhism andShinto; he notably suggested that Japanese Buddhism was a form ofMonotheism.[9]
The zoologistsCoenraad Temminck (1777–1858),Hermann Schlegel (1804–1884), andWilhem de Haan (1801–1855) scientifically described and documented Von Siebold's collection of Japanese animals.[1] TheFauna Japonica, a series of monographs published between 1833 and 1850, was mainly based on von Siebold's collection, making the Japanese fauna the best-described non-European fauna – "a remarkable feat". A significant part of theFauna Japonica was also based on the collections of Von Siebold's successor on Dejima,Heinrich Bürger.
Von Siebold wrote hisFlora Japonica in collaboration with the German botanistJoseph Gerhard Zuccarini (1797–1848). It first appeared in 1835, but the work was not completed until after his death, finished in 1870 by F.A.W. Miquel (1811–1871), director of the Rijksherbarium in Leiden. This work expanded von Siebold's scientific fame from Japan to Europe.
From theHortus Botanicus Leiden – the botanical garden of Leiden – many of von Siebold's plants spread to Europe and from there to other countries.Hosta andHortensia,Azalea, and the Japanesebutterbur and thecoltsfoot as well as theJapanese larch began to inhabit gardens across the world.
After his return to Europe, von Siebold tried to exploit his knowledge of Japan. Whilst living inBoppard, from 1852 he corresponded with Russian diplomats such asBaron von Budberg-Bönninghausen, the Russian ambassador toPrussia, which resulted in an invitation to go to St Petersburg to advise the Russian government how to open trade relations with Japan. Though still employed by the Dutch government he did not inform the Dutch of this voyage until after his return.
American Naval CommodoreMatthew C. Perry consulted von Siebold in advance of his voyage to Japan in 1854.[10] He notably advisedTownsend Harris on howChristianity might be spread to Japan, alleging based on his time there that the Japanese "hated" Christianity.[11]
In 1858, the Japanese government lifted the banishment of von Siebold. He returned to Japan in 1859 as an adviser to the Agent of the Dutch Trading Society (Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij) in Nagasaki, Albert Bauduin. After two years the connection with the Trading Society was severed as the advice of von Siebold was considered to be of no value. In Nagasaki he fathered another child with one of his female servants.
In 1861 von Siebold organised his appointment as an adviser to the Japanese government and went in that function to Edo. There he tried to obtain a position between the foreign representatives and the Japanese government. As he had been specially admonished by the Dutch authorities before going to Japan that he was to abstain from all interference in politics, the Dutch Consul General in Japan, J.K. de Wit, was ordered to ask von Siebold's removal.[12] Von Siebold was ordered to return to Batavia and from there he returned to Europe.
After his return he asked the Dutch government to employ him as Consul General in Japan but the Dutch government severed all relations with von Siebold who had a huge debt because of loans given to him, except for the payment of his pension.
Von Siebold kept trying to organise another voyage to Japan. After he did not succeed in gaining employment with the Russian government, he went to Paris in 1865 to try to interest the French government in funding another expedition to Japan, but failed.[13] He died inMunich on 18 October 1866.[1]
The botanical and horticultural spheres of influence have honored Philipp Franz von Siebold by naming some of the very garden-worthy plants that he studied after him. Examples include:
Though he is well known in Japan, where he is called "Shiboruto-san", and although mentioned in the relevant schoolbooks, von Siebold is almost unknown elsewhere, except among gardeners who admire the many plants whose names incorporatesieboldii andsieboldiana. TheHortus Botanicus in Leiden has recently laid out the "Von Siebold Memorial Garden", a Japanese garden with plants sent by Von Siebold. The garden was laid out under a 150-year-oldZelkova serrata tree dating from Von Siebold's lifetime.[17] Japanese visitors come and visit this garden, to pay their respect for him.
Although he was disillusioned by what he perceived as a lack of appreciation for Japan and his contributions to its understanding, a testimony of the remarkable character of Von Siebold is found inmuseums that honor him.
His collections laid the foundation for the ethnographic museums of Munich and Leiden.Alexander von Siebold, one of his sons by his European wife, offered for purchase some of the material left behind in Würzburg after von Siebold's death to theBritish Museum in London, but the offer was declined. The Royal Scientific Academy ofSt. Petersburg purchased 600 colored plates of theFlora Japonica.
Another son,Heinrich (or Henry) von Siebold (1852–1908), continued part of his father's research. He is recognized, together withEdward S. Morse, as one of the founders of modernarchaeological efforts in Japan. His archaeological material was sold to the British Museum.
From recent Dutch visitors of Japan and the German of Dr. Ph. Fr. von Siebold(compiled by an anonymous author, not by Von Siebold himself !)
The standardauthor abbreviationSiebold is used to indicate Philipp Franz von Siebold as the author whenciting a botanical name.[19]
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