Background
Thunberg was born on November 11, 1743 and grew up in Jönköping, Sweden.
(This edition makes available once again Thunberg’s extrao...)
This edition makes available once again Thunberg’s extraordinary writings on Japan, complete with illustrations, a full introduction and annotations. Carl Peter Thunberg, pupil and successor of Linnaeus - of the great fathers of modern science - spent eighteen fascinating months in the notoriously inaccessible Japan in 1775-1776, and this is his story.
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Thunberg was born on November 11, 1743 and grew up in Jönköping, Sweden.
At the age of 18, he entered the Swedish Uppsala University where he was taught by the famous Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus. Thunberg graduated in 1767 after only 6 years of studying.
In 1770 he obtained an appointment as surgeon in the Dutch East India Company, and sailed to the Cape of Good Hope in 1772. He spent three years there, and then went to Japan. During his three-year stay, the Swede managed to perfect his Dutch and delve deeper into the scientific knowledge, culture and societal structure of the "Hottentotten", the Dutch name for the Khoikhoi, the native people of Western South Africa.
During his three expeditions into the interior, Thunberg collected a significant number of specimens of both flora and fauna. At the initiative of Linnaeus, he graduated at Uppsala as Doctor of Medicine in absentia, while he was at the Cape in 1772. Thunberg left the Cape for Batavia on 2 March 1775. He arrived in Batavia on 18 May 1775, and left for Japan on 20 June.
In August 1775, he arrived at the Dutch factory of the V.O.C. (Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie) at Dejima, a small artificial island in the Bay of Nagasaki connected to the city by a single small bridge. However, just like the Dutch merchants, Thunberg was hardly allowed to leave the island. The only locals who were allowed regular contact with the Dutch were the interpreters of Nagasaki and the relevant authorities of the city.
Shortly after the Schoonzicht's arrival on Deshima, Thunberg was appointed head surgeon of the trading post. To still be able to collect specimen of Japanese plants and animals as well as to gather information on the population, Thunberg soon began to systematically construct networks with the interpreters by sending them small notes containing medical knowledge and receiving botanical knowledge or rare Japanese coins in return. Quickly, the news spread that a well-educated Dutch physician was in town who seemed to be able to help the local doctors cure the Dutch disease, another word for syphilis. As a result, the appropriate authorities granted him more and more visits to the city and finally even allowed him one-day trips into the vicinity of Nagasaki where Thunberg had the chance to collect specimen by himself.
In November 1776, after Thunberg had returned from his trip to the shogun's court, he left Japan and went on to Java, an island that nowadays belongs to Indonesia. From there on, he travelled to Ceylon in July 1777, today's Sri Lanka. Here again, his major interest lay in collecting plants and other specimen. In 1778, Thunberg left Ceylon to return to Europe.
In February 1778, Thunberg left Ceylon for Amsterdam, passing by at the Cape and staying there for two weeks. He finally arrived at Amsterdam in October 1778. In 1776, Thunberg had been elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
He returned to Sweden in 1779. On arrival in Sweden in March 1779, he was informed of the death of Linnaeus, one year earlier. He was first appointed botanical demonstrator in 1777, and in 1781 professor of medicine and natural philosophy at the University of Uppsala. His publications and specimens resulted in many new taxa.
He published his Flora japonica in 1784, and in 1788 he began to publish his travels. He completed his Prodromus plantarum in 1800, his Icones plantarum japonicarum in 1805, and his Flora capensis in 1813. He published numerous memoirs in the transactions of many Swedish and other scientific societies, of sixty-six of which he was an honorary member.
In 1809 he became correspondent, and in 1823 associated member of the Royal Institute of the Netherlands.
He died at Thunaberg near Uppsala on 8 August 1828.
(This edition makes available once again Thunberg’s extrao...)
He was a honorary member of sixty-six scientific societies, including Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences and Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.