Sugita Genpaku

Sugita Genpaku was a Japanese physician and scholar of rangaku, or Dutch learning. After watching a dissection in Edo in 1771 that confirmed the accuracy of a Dutch anatomy book, he and his colleagues translated it as the Kaitai Shinsho, published in 1774. His memoir, Rangaku Kotohajime, describes the difficulties of that work and became the founding story of Western learning in Japan.