Philipp Franz von Siebold

Philipp Franz Balthasar von Siebold , Doctor and Naturalist Bavarian, was born the February 17th 1796 with Würzburg and died the October 18th 1866 with Munich. Of noble family with the rank of Baron, he is the brother of the Anatomiste and Zoologiste Carl Theodor Ernst von Siebold (1804-1885).

Receipt doctor in 1820, it enters to the service of the Dutch Compagnie of the Eastern Indies in 1822. Arrived at the Japan in 1823 with Dutch scientific legation, its meeting with this country was to seal its destiny and its vocation.

A vocation hiding place another of them

During the time Edo (1639 to 1854), the Japanese archipelago was closed the abroads and only the Dutchmen were authorized to reside in their commercial counter of the artificial island of Dejima close to Nagasaki. Siebold had thus to be made pass for Dutch to be able to reside of 1823 at it with 1829. Its strong Bavarian accent wakes up some suspicions near the Japanese interpreters, whom he manages to deaden by calling upon a mysterious Dutch dialect.

Six years records in Japan

With the favor of an easing of the policy of closing (known as Sakoku), Shogun of Tokugawa, but also of the personal recommendations of Japanese scientists, it is authorized to open there the school Narutaki , which joins together soon an elite made up of about fifty students avant-gardists of all ages and come from all the archipelago, selected by the Shogunat. They are the famous rangakusha (蘭学者, disciples of the “studies Dutch”, synonymous with Western studies), set on Western sciences and of which much was the spearhead of the movement progressist, around Chōei Takano. Siebold teaches there the Médecine and the Natural history. Using of its protections, it acquires under a Japanese name, a country house in the surroundings of Narutaki where it receives its pupils and admirors, who flow for better seeing and hearing the large foreign “Meester”.

Amusing thing, as it was not supposed to receive fees on behalf of its patients, the latter paid it in kind, generally by offering all kinds of objects and curios to him which took then an historical value, to the base of its large ethnographic collection.

Siebold was thus the first Westerner to teach medicine in Japan, but was made infinitely more famous there while supplementing work pionnière of the doctor and Swedish botanist Carl Peter Thunberg. After having founded the botanical garden of Dejima, it is invited to Edo (today Tōkyō), where it knows success and glory. Its remarkable studies on the Flora and the Japanese fauna will pass to the posterity.

Overflowed by its activities of teacher, Siebold manages nevertheless to join together the largest collection of Japanese plants in the world (including more than 2.200 species of Phanérogame S!). The majority were collected by its students and collaborators, of which most known are: Keisuke Itō, Zonshin Ōkōchi, Sugeroku Mizutani and even the doctor of the shogun, Hoken Katsuragawa. All the specimens joined together during its stay in Japan were not the first to reach Europe, but they came to supplement those of Kämpfer (1651-1716) and Thunberg (1743-1828) receipts with. It also rented the indigenous services of hunters to feed its collection of animals.

Siebold meets, on March 29th, 1826, the botanist Hōbun Mizutani (1779-1833) like its two pupils, Ōkōchi Sonjin (1796-1883) and Keisuke Itō (1803-1901), which forms a group of naturalists with Nagoya. Those know some Western work thanks to the Dutchwomen publications and in particular Hōbun which names its plants while following the Dutchwoman translation of work linnéens realized Maarten Houttuyn (1720-1798), but seems it, without controlling the system linnéen well. It is Keisuke Itō which, the first, will sensitize the Japanese naturalists with the system of classification developed by Linné like with the system of binomial nomenclature.

The Policy and Love

Charged by the Dutch government with collecting all kinds of information on Japan but not speaking nor not reading Japanese, Siebold could find dedicated interpreters and collaborators among its rangakusei , making them write in Dutch of the memories touching with all the aspects of Japanese civilization: flora, fauna, linguistics, history and geography…

But, of nature to the men, there is only one step, and Siebold meets soon the love, under the features of O' Taki San (楠本滝 Taki Kusumoto), a young Japanese woman who will not hesitate to face the opprobrium while being fictitiously made record like courtesan to circumvent the prohibition of marriage with a foreigner. From their union will be born a girl, O' Iné (1823-1903), which will become the first lady doctor of Japan.

Retirement fertilizes in Leyde

Since 1827, it had dispatched with Batavia, Brussels and Antwerp of the whole collections, not only of plants but also of rare books, of prints and of objects of Article But, the Japanese government of the time had strictly prohibited the sale the abroads of all touching documents to the administration, the topography or the history of the country, just as the objects relating to the religion, the art of war and the life of the court, considered as secrecies of state.

And it is that sudden there any rocker. In 1828, having obtained the astronomer Kageyasu Takahashi several detailed charts of Japan and Korea (made by Tadataka Inō), he judges good to add his hand to it the northern layout of the borders of Japan. Badly took some to him! Following the shipwreck of the ship which carried one of its cargoes, these charts are recovered by the rescuers, among about fifty other prohibited objects. The government shows it at once high treason, as spy with the pay of the Russia. Some of its students will be imprisoned but itself will be condemned only to expulsion, on October 22nd 1829.

Torn off with its studies and its loves, Siebold embarks for Batavia, carrying all its collections, which it will then bequeath to the museum of Leyde. It arrives at the Netherlands on July 7th, 1830, after a eight years stay in Japan and at Batavia.

It is established in Leyde where a titanic task awaited it, which will occupy during twenty years. On the 12.000 specimens of its collection, it will be able to treat of them only 2.300, the remainder being still the subject of research today! It builds a special Serre at once to cultivate its brought back plants of Japan, then is harnessed with the drafting of the results of its observations. It will provide a monumental work, by beginning with Japanese (1832), the first volume of an ethnographic and geographical work, richly illustrated, on Japan. It includes there a tasty account of its stay at the court shogunale of Edo. Five additional volumes will appear, until 1882.

Publications

(1822) Of historiae naturalis in Japonia statu
(1826) Epitome linguae Japonicae (Batavia)
(1829) Synopsis Hydrangeae generis specierum Iaponicarum . In: Nova Acta Physico-Medica Academiae Caesareae Leopoldino-Carolina flight 14, share II.
(1832-1954) Japanese: Archiv zur Beschreibung von Japan , 20 parts, 5 volumes of text, 6 volumes of atlas and engravings;
(1833-1941) Bibliotheca Japonica with Joseph Hoffmann and Kuo Cheng-Chang (Leyde, 6 volumes) of the Japanese literature and Chinese, Japanese and Korean dictionary;
(1835-1941) Thesaurus linguae japonicae (Leyde);
(1835-1841) Flora Japonica P.F von Siebold and J.G. Zuccarini, the first 2 volumes
(1833-1850) Fauna Japonica published by P.F von Siebold, texts of C.J. Temminck, H. Schlegel, and W.D. Haan, 5 volumes
(1835-1953) Flora Japonica (Leyde, volumes 3 - 15, with Zuccarini, J.G.).
(1843) Plantaram, quas in Japonia collegit Dr. pH. France De Siebold generated nova, notis characteristicis delineationibusque illustrata proponunt. In: Abhandlungen DER mathematisch-physikalischen Class der Königlich-Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften volume 3, p 717-750 (with Zuccarini, J.G.)
(1845) Florae Japonicae familae naturales adjectis generum and specierum exemplis selectis. Sectio preceded. Plantae Dicotyledoneae polypetalae . In: Abhandlungen DER mathematisch-physikalischen Classe der Königlich-Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften vol. 4 leaves III, p 109-204m (with Zuccarini, J.G.)
(1846) Florae Japonicae familae naturales adjectis generum and specierum exemplis selectis. Sectio deteriorated. Plantae dicotyledoneae and monocotyledonae share III, volume 4, (with the collaboration of Zuccarini, J.G.)
(1866-1871) Flora Japonica (Leyde, volumes 16-20, Zuccarini, J.G and Miquel, F.A.W.)

Epilog

In remembering his partner, he baptizes name of Hydrangea otaksa (familiar contraction of which he usually used) his “ more beautiful plant ”. This flower, symbol of Nagasaki, will become our current Hortensia (Hydrangea macrophylla).

It is still him which initiates the culture of the The to Java (then Dutch colony ), using feet imported in smuggling of Japan. Little by little, since the Botanical garden of Leyde, many crop plants by Siebold in all the Europe and the rest of the world start to be diffused. Among good of other species, one can quote the hosta, the Hortensia and the Azalée S.

Alas, no one is not prophet in his country and, although regarded as a highly skilled scientist in Japan (シーボルト氏 or シーボルト先生) where museums and scientific magazines bear its name today, it remains passably unknown in Europe, except handle of horticulturists and botanists. Named to advise with the cultural and social affairs Japanese, Siebold obtains the unhoped-for authorization to go back to Japan for this reason, and remains there on several occasions of 1859 to 1863. It benefits to re-examine his wife and her daughter, and cherishes a time the hope from it to finish its days there, surrounded of the affection as of his.

But its proposals for a true approach " culturelle" of Japan and not " marchande" were not appreciated a Dutch government. He is recalled to Batavia, then in Holland. After having offered, in vain, its services at the French governments and Russian, Siebold, having disillusioned by this contempt posted both towards Japan and with respect to its work, regains its birthplace of Würzburg.

The plants remember

It is happy that the plants, foreign with human ingratitude, never forget those which liked them. Very many species, in particular horticultural, were dedicated to him, among which:

Clematis florida "sieboldii" : with flowers cream-coloured white and large cheesecloth crimson bouquet purplished

Dryopteris sieboldii , a thick fern with the slings coriace like leather

Hosta sieboldii , Hosta of Siebold or with narrow sheets, many the cultivars

Magniolia sieboldii , with the brilliant sheets and splendid scented corollas

Malus sieboldii , apple tree whining, very odorous, with pink flowers then white

Primula sieboldii the Japanese primula of wood or Primula of Siebold

Prunus sieboldii , a decorative cherry tree

Sedum sieboldii , long-lived fatty plant, with small fringed sheets of red.

Tsuga sieboldii Tsuga (sapinette) of Japan, today T. araragi

Viburnum sieboldii , large Viorne, sometimes named " wood of arc" of Siebold

References

呉秀三 'シーボルト其生涯及び功業' 著者、東京、 1896 年
呉秀三 '先生其生涯及功業' （第 2 版）、吐鳳堂、東京 1926 年
大鳥蘭三郎 'シーボルト関係書簡集'、 1941 年
板沢武雄 'シーボルト' 吉川弘文館、東京、 1960 年
中山安 'シーボルトの頃'、 1963 年
Stockhausen, Juliana von: Der Mann in der Mondsichel. Aus dem Leben of Philipp Franz von Siebold 258 S. DVA Stuttgart 1970
中西啓 “シーボルト前後長崎医学史ノート” 長崎文献社、長崎、 1989 年
Peter Noever (Hg.): Das alte Japan. Spuren und Objekte der Siebold-Reisen, München: Prestel 1997
Yamaguchi, T., 1997: Von Siebold and Japanese Botany. Special Calanus number I.
Alexander v. Siebold: Philipp Franz von Siebold. Eine biographische Skizze. data base 1, S. xiii & xxxiii in: PH. F. v. Siebold, Japanese. Archiv zur Beschreibung von Japan'', 2 Bände, 2. , veränderte und ergänzte Auflage, hrsg. von seinen Söhnen, Würzburg und Leipzig: Leo Woerl 1897.

Beukers, H.: The mission off Hippocrates in Japan: the contribution off Philipp Franz von Siebold. Amsterdam, 1998.

Yamaguchi, T., 2003: How did Von Siebold accumulate botanical specimens in Japan? , Special Calanus number V.

Michel, W.: Japan seen by Siebold and Siebold seen of Japan Japanese , public conference within the framework of the exposure “Japan seen by Siebold” of February 12th, 2005.

Masuzō Ueno, 1964: The Western Influences one Natural History in Japan, Monumenta Nipponica , 19 (3/4): 315-339.

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