영어속독(200단어)--Types of Rangaku(蘭學)<2>

Physical sciences[edit]

Some of the first scholars of Rangaku were involved with the assimilation of 17th century theories in the physical sciences. This is the case of Shizuki Tadao (ja:志筑忠雄) an eighth-generation descendant of the Shizuki house of Nagasaki Dutch translators, who after having completed for the first time a systematic analysis of Dutch grammar, went on to translate the Dutch edition of Introductio ad Veram Physicam of the British author John Keil on the theories of Newton (Japanese title: Rekishō Shinsho (暦象新書^?, roughly: "New Text on Transitive Effects"), 1798). Shizuki coined several key scientific terms for the translation, which are still in use in modern Japanese; for example, "gravity" (重力, jūryoku^?), "attraction" (引力, inryoku^?), and "centrifugal force" (遠心力, enshinryoku^?). A second Rangaku scholar, Hoashi Banri (ja:帆足万里), published a manual of physical sciences in 1810 – Kyūri-Tsū (窮理通^?, roughly on Natural Laws") – based on a combination of thirteen Dutch books, after learning Dutch from just one Dutch-Japanese dictionary.

 

Electrical sciences[edit

Electrical experiments were widely popular from around 1770. Following the invention of the Leyden jar in 1745, similar electrostatic generators were obtained for the first time in Japan from the Dutch around 1770 by Hiraga Gennai. Static electricity was produced by the friction of a glass tube with a gold-plated stick, creating electrical effects. The jars were reproduced and adapted by the Japanese, who called it "Elekiteru" (エレキテル, Erekiteru^?). As in Europe, these generators were used as curiosities, such as making sparks fly from the head of a subject or for supposed pseudoscientific medical advantages. In Sayings of the Dutch, the elekiteru is described as a machine that allows one to take sparks out of the human body, to treat sick parts. Elekiterus were sold widely to the public in curiosity shops. Many electric machines derived from the elekiteru were then invented, particularly by Sakuma Shōzan.(295 words)

 

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