Koan Ogata
Encyclopedia
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
physician
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
who lived in the Edo period
Edo period
The , or , is a division of Japanese history which was ruled by the shoguns of the Tokugawa family, running from 1603 to 1868. The political entity of this period was the Tokugawa shogunate....
.
He is well-known for importing Western medical knowledge into Japan during Japan's isolationist era (see Rangaku
Rangaku
Rangaku is a body of knowledge developed by Japan through its contacts with the Dutch enclave of Dejima, which allowed Japan to keep abreast of Western technology and medicine in the period when the country was closed to foreigners, 1641–1853, because of the Tokugawa shogunate’s policy of national...
), and for establishing the Tekijuku
Tekijuku
Tekijuku was a school established in Senba Osaka, in 1838 during the Tenpō era of the late Edo period. Its founder was Ogata Kōan, a doctor and scholar of Dutch studies...
(適塾) school that later developed into Osaka University
Osaka University
, or , is a major national university located in Osaka, Japan. It is the sixth oldest university in Japan as the Osaka Prefectural Medical College, and formerly one of the Imperial Universities of Japan...
in 1938. Ogata used his small but precious collection of Dutch books, including a Dutch-Japanese dictionary and a Dutch encyclopedia, to teach his pupils to read scientific Dutch texts.
His house still exists in downtown Osaka. Built in a conventional eighteenth-century style, the students left their mark on the central post of the second-flour classroom, slashing and hacking it with their swords.
Famous alumni
Alumni of the Tekijuku include Fukuzawa YukichiFukuzawa Yukichi
was a Japanese author, writer, teacher, translator, entrepreneur and political theorist who founded Keio University. His ideas about government and social institutions made a lasting impression on a rapidly changing Japan during the Meiji Era...
, Ōmura Masujirō
Omura Masujiro
-External links:* * * http://www.jstor.org/view/03636917/di973569/97p0119n/0...
, Ōtori Keisuke
Otori Keisuke
was a Japanese military commander during the last years of the Tokugawa shogunate and the beginning of the Meiji Era.-Early life and education:Ōtori Keisuke was born in Akamatsu Village, in the Akō domain of Harima Province , the son of physician Kobayashi Naosuke...
, Takeda Ayasaburō
Takeda Ayasaburo
, was a Japanese Rangaku scholar, and the architect of the fortress of Goryōkaku in Hokkaidō.Takeda was born in the Ōzu Domain in 1827. He studied medicine, Western sciences , navigation, military architecture. He was a student of Ogata Kōan and Sakuma Shōzan...
, and the manga artist Tezuka Osamu
Osamu Tezuka
was a Japanese cartoonist, manga artist, animator, producer, activist and medical doctor, although he never practiced medicine. Born in Osaka Prefecture, he is best known as the creator of Astro Boy, Kimba the White Lion and Black Jack...
's ancestor Tezuka Ryōan.
Books
He was the author of "Byōgakutsūron" (病学通論), which was the first book on pathologyPathology
Pathology is the precise study and diagnosis of disease. The word pathology is from Ancient Greek , pathos, "feeling, suffering"; and , -logia, "the study of". Pathologization, to pathologize, refers to the process of defining a condition or behavior as pathological, e.g. pathological gambling....
to be published in Japan.