On the Manuscript \u22llustrated Mirror of Dutch Plants\u22 and its Background

Wolfgang Michel: On the Manuscript \u22llustrated Mirror of Dutch Plants\u22 (Siebold Museum, Nagasaki) and its Background. Narutaki Bulletin, No. 17 (March 2007), pp. 9-38.On the \u22llustrated Mirror of Dutch Plants\u22 and its Background. In 1667 the Japanese government turned its attention to the cultivation of imported plants as well as the investigation of local botanical resources and the destillation of pharmaceutical oils. The Dutch East India Company was requested to provide with plants, seeds and had to send an experienced specialist to Japan. The scroll \u22Illustrated Mirror of Dutch Plants\u22 (28 x 1337cm, 81 illustrations, dated 1679) is the only Japanese source showing the name of Frans Braun, the second of two pharmacists dispatched to Nagasaki. An analysis of Dutch and Japanese sources revealed that this scroll goes back to reports on field work conducted by Braun and his predecessor Gottfried Haeck in the vicinity of Nagasaki during the late 1660s and early 1670s. Obviously the Japanese, while using Chinese books for their description of plants, had already become aware of the specific properties of their own flora. Thus the emancipaction of Japanese botany from its Chinese model began much earlier than presumed by previous researchers.シーボルト記念館所蔵の「阿蘭陀草花鏡図」とその背景について １６６７年に幕府は薬草の輸入、国内植物資源の開発と製薬技術の移転に目をむけるようになった。延宝７（１６７９）年に成立した「阿蘭陀草花鏡図」は東インド会社の薬剤師ヘックとブラウンが長崎付近で行われた薬草調査に遡っているが、「阿蘭陀本草図経」等々の周囲資料との比較分析により、阿蘭陀通詞でない著者は通詞の報告や中国本草学の資料を利用しながら日本植物の特集性を認識していたことが浮き彫りにされた。日本の独自の本草学への動きは、すでに１６６０年代に始まったようだ