Career
He is one of the eight children of Christiaan Eijkman, the headmaster of a local school, and Johanna Alida Pool. He was hired during the Meiji period, a Japanese era which extended from September 1868 through July 1912. During his stay in Japan, he was the first to isolate shikimic acid in 1885 from the Japanese flower shikimi (シキミ, the Japanese star anise, Illicium anisatum).