Takano Chōei

Takano Chōei was a Japanese physician and scholar of Dutch learning (rangaku) who studied under Philipp Franz von Siebold at Nagasaki. In 1838 he criticised the shogunate's policy of firing on foreign ships and was imprisoned in the purge of 1839. He escaped in 1844, was sheltered for a time by Date Munenari of Uwajima, for whom he translated Western military works, and killed himself in 1850 when officers came to arrest him.