Background
GEMPO NISHI was born in Nagasaki; his given name was Kichibei.
GEMPO NISHI was born in Nagasaki; his given name was Kichibei.
He began the study of surgery under the Portuguese missionary Christovao Ferreira (Sawano Chüan), who had apostatized and was employed by the Japanese as an interpreter. He continued his studies of Western medicine under various Dutch physicians of Dejima.
In 1668 he received a diploma in Western medicine from the Dutch doctor Arnold Dirckz and later studied with another Dutch doctor named Willem ten Ryne.
He first acted as an interpreter of Portuguese, but in 1641, when the Dutch trading office at Hirado was moved to Dejima in Nagasaki, he became an interpreter of Dutch. In 1656 he was appointed daitsüji, or chief interpreter, and in 1673 was summoned to Edo to act as an official surgeon and interpreter for the shogunate.
Adding his own ideas to what he had learned, he established himself as a Western style physician. He also joined with Mukai Gensho in writing the Kenkon bensetsu, a refutation of a Portuguese work on astronomy, which Sawano Chüan had earlier translated into romanized Japanese, and wrote other works such as the Shokoku miyagesho.
He died in Edo in 1684.