Background
Chōei Takano was born on 12 June 1804 into the Goto family in the city of Mizusawa in the province of Mutsu, present-day Iwate Prefecture, he was adopted into the Takano family at an early age.
高野 長英
Chōei Takano was born on 12 June 1804 into the Goto family in the city of Mizusawa in the province of Mutsu, present-day Iwate Prefecture, he was adopted into the Takano family at an early age.
In 1820, at the age of sixteen, he went to Edo and became a student of the physician and scholor Sugita Hakugen, the following year studying Dutch internal medicine under Yoshida Choshuku. In 1825 he journeyed to Nagasaki and entered the Narutakijuku, the medical school opened by Philipp Franz von Siebold, a German doctor attached to the Dutch trading office there.
In 1828, when Siebold came under suspicion of spying, many of his students were condemned to punishment, but Choei managed to escape difficulty and make his way back to Edo, where he set up practice as a town doctor in KSjimachi and in his spare time devoted himself to writing and translating.
In 1839 in the action known as the Bansha imprisonment, he and others of the Shoshikai were arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment. Choei, however, was not humbled.
In 1844 fire broke out in the prison where he was confined, and he succeded in escaping, fleeing Edo and making his way in secret about the country. In 1848 he settled for a time in the domain of Uwajima, in present- day Ehime Prefecture in Shikoku, where he lectured on Dutch learning and continued his translation labors, and the following year he went to Kagoshima in Kyushu at the invitation of the lord of the domain, Shimazu Nari- akira, and translated a work on military science.
In 1850, having disfigured his face with chemicals, he secretly made his way to Edo and set up business as a doctor once more under the assumed name Sawa Sampaku, at the same time continuing to translate works on military science. In the same year, however, the shogunate officials discovered his whereabouts and surrounded the house, upon which he committed suicide.
In 1838 he wrote a work called the Yume-monogatari (“Dream Stories”) in which he criticized the shogunate for its order to attack and repel any foreign ships approaching Japanese shores.
While in prison wrote another work, the Tori no ndkune, pointing out the error of the shogunate’s way of governing.
Around 1832 he joined with other scholars of Dutch learning such as Watanabe Kazan and Kozeki San’ei to form the Shoshikai, a society for the study of Western European culture and discussion of current problems.