RECONQUER

from Kulmus, Johann Adam. Kaitai shinsho. (Tōbu [Edo]: Suharaya Ichibē shi, An'ei 3 [1774]). Courtesy of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

In Hakuouki, the late-and-largely-unlamented Yukimura Koudou was a Rangaku Doctor. So was the Shinsengumi’s real-life consulting doctor Matsumoto Ryojun. So what exactly was Rangaku?

Rangaku 蘭学literally means “Dutch learning,” but all Western studies fell under the name Rangaku. The origin of the name goes back to the years when the small Dutch trading post of Dejima in Nagasaki was the only Western presence in Japan. (Holland as pronounced in Japanese is ‘Oranda.’ So the kanji 蘭 (orchid) with the reading of 'ran’, was assigned to write Dutch.)

Rangaku Medicine has a fascinating story. The skeletons above are from a Japanese translation of Dutch translation of a German anatomical text. The book entered Japan via Dejima, and then was translated by a very motivated group of Japanese doctors. These doctors had to learn Dutch with very limited resources just to translate the book. 

How the ‘modern’ code was cracked is a really good short retelling of the story published in the Japan Times. It begins with the 1771 autopsy of an obscure murderer known to history as The Green Tea Hag. 

The headless body of a woman in her 50s was laid on a straw mat inside a hut at Kotsukahara in Edo’s Senju area. Born in Kyoto and nicknamed “Aochababa,” sketchy court records indicate the woman had been convicted of killing her adopted children. She had been executed by beheading that very morning, March 4, 1771.

Forty-seven year-old Maeno Ryotaku, Sugita Genpaku, 37, Nakagawa Jun’an, 31, and several other doctors in the hut were eagerly waiting for dissection to begin on this rare occasion when permission for the procedure had been granted.

Read More of the article here.

On a more scholarly note, you could read this six-page article by John E. Van Sant: Rangaku Medicine and “Foreign” Knowledge in Late Tokugawa Japan (pdf). This article covers some of the same ground as the Japan Times article, then outlines Rangaku medicine up to the last years of the shogunate. 

Coppola's "Megalopolis" causes controversy at Cannes, but is it déjà vu? This 1979 article reminds us that he's always been a maverick.

This was a response to a question I received, which is why it is addressed to a particular person. But I spent too much time writing it to not post it here.

This deals with why the invocation of Saints is justified from the grand story of the Bible, not just one or two passages. I start with Genesis 1 and end with Revelation 20. Due credit goes to James Jordan for many of the insights that went into this, though he would despise his insights being used to argue for the intercession of the Saints.

My argument starts with the nature of a prophet. Most people think of prophets as those who proclaim the words of God, whereas priests are intercessors. While both, of course, do both, I actually think the emphasis here is backwards. Priests are appointed as teachers of the people, but prophets have a special role before God as intercessors. They are filled with the Holy Spirit and elevated to a position on God’s heavenly council. Let’s set the foundations here.

The heavenly council, in the Old Testament, is the host of angels surrounding God and “advising” Him. You see this in Job 1-2, 1 Kings 22, and so on. The theme begins in Genesis 1. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth- but only the earth was without form, void, and dark. God spends six days forming, filling, and brightening the earth, bringing it closer to the fullness of its heavenly model. Man is called in Genesis 2:4 the “generations of the heavens and the earth.” He is the son of the Spirit of God (heaven) and the dust of the ground (earth). As he grows in communion with God, he will pull the material creation with him. This is why Christ in 1 Corinthians 15 is the heavenly man. God made a soulish body in Genesis 2, but the resurrected body is a spiritual body. It is fully animated by the Holy Spirit, and Christ as Last Adam brings the whole creation up with him.

Grim was the world and grey last night: The moon and stars fled, The hall was dark without song or light, The fires were fallen dead. The wind in the trees was like to the sea, And over the mountains’ teeth It whistled bitter-cold and free, As a sword leapt from its sheath.

The lord of snows up-reared his head; His mantle long and pale Upon the bitter blast and spread And hung o’er hill and dale. The world was blind, the boughs were bent, All the ways and paths were wild: Then the veil of cloud apart was rent, And here was born a Child.

The ancient dome of heaven sheer Was pricked with distant light; A star came shining white and clear Alone above the night. In the dale of dark in that hour of birth One voice on a sudden sang: Then all the bells in Heaven and Earth Together at midnight rang.

Mary sang in this world below: They heard her song arise O’er mist and over mountain snow To the walls of Paradise, And the tongue of many bells was stirred In Heaven’s towers to ring When the voice of mortal maid was heard, That was the mother of Heaven’s King.