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Some aspects of Japanese science,

1868–1945
a
Eikoh Shimao
a
5-14 Ohatacho, Nishinomiya, Hyogo, 662, Japan
Published online: 23 Aug 2006.
To cite this article: Eikoh Shimao (1989) Some aspects of Japanese science, 1868–1945, Annals of
Science, 46:1, 69-91
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00033798900200131
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ANNALS OF SCIENCE, 46 (1989), 69--91
Some Aspects of Japanese Science, 1868-1945t
EIKOH SHIMAO~
5--14 Ohatacho, Nishinoraiya, Hyogo, 662, Japan
Received 7 June 1988
Summary
This is a brief history of Japanese science since the beginning of Japan as a modem
Downloaded by [University of Tasmania] at 02:26 14 October 2014
state in 1868 to the end of the Second World War. It focuses on five aspects: (1) The
intellectual training in Chinese studies prior to the period was significant for the
reception of Western science. Chinese ideograms were effectively utilized for
creating technical terms for science. (2) Western science and technology were
intensively implanted in approximately the first 30 years with the help of a large
number of hired foreign experts, unparalleled in modern world history. (3) A few
major scientific personalities and a new, leading research institute emerged around
the First World War. (4) The wartime expansion of research expenditure occurred
and Japanese research institutes were established in China. (5) Maturity of Japanese
science was attained, as seen in an example of theoretical physics.
Contents
1. Sjenificance of Chinese studies for the reception of Western science ..... 69
2. The Imperial College of Engineering modelled on the Polytechnic
Institute in Zurich (ETH) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
3. Scientific research at a distance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
4. The growth of science in a militaristic age . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
5. The coming of age of Japanese science . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
1. Significance of Chinese studies for the rec~tion of Western science

The introduction of Western science into Japan was a process of acculturation.
However, it was preceded by another acculturation, the absorption in Chinese studies
throughout the Tokugawa Period (1603-1868). Chinese learning was indeed conveyed
to Japan much earlier, from around the fifth century. But it was only from the
seventeenth century that Chinese studies were disseminated to a wider audience, for the
Tokugawa Shogunate authorized Chu Tse's Confucianism as official learning, and
encouraged Chinese studies.
During the Tokugawa Period the rate of dissemination of education was not
inferior to any of the advanced European countries in the same period) There were
elementary schools (terakoya) for common people, and fief schools (hanko) for the
ruling class. More than 230 fief schools were founded by the authority of various fiefs
from the 1620s through the 1870s. Classical Chinese was the main subject.
1R. P. Dore, Educationin TokuoawaJapan (London, 1965),p. 291.

t An earlierdraft of this paper was presentedat the Princeton Uni~rsity History of ScienceColloquium
in October 1987 by the kind arrangement of Professor Charles Coulston Gillispieand Marius Jansen.
With the exceptionofthe author's name,Japaneseand Chinesenamesin this articleare writtensurname
first.
0003-3790/89$3"009 1989Taylor& FrancisLtd.

70 Eikoh Shimao
Classical Chinese was a language which enabled one to grasp all kinds of
knowledge from antiquity down to the modern age, such as the Confucian canons,
history, literature, strategy, medicine, astronomy, technics, etc. Intellectual training by
means of Chinese learning served to prepare for the reception of Western science, for
the Japanese learned how to express abstract concepts by the use of Chinese ideograms.
The kana and hirakana (Japanese phonetic symbols), which were invented in Japan
in the eighth century and were based upon Chinese characters, were important in
Japanese literature but of little use in introducing Western science in the Meiji Period.
(At present, by contrast, in an age of computerization, more and more kana
expressions of scientific and technological terms are introduced. The kana have proved
to be quite useful, too, in the successful word-processing of the Japanese language,
which includes many Chinese characters.)
When Hanaoka Seishu operated on cancer of the breast for the first time in the
world with the aid of an anaesthetic in 1805, his technique was that of Western surgery,
while his anaesthetic was taken from the Chinese pharmacopoeia. It was an example of
a treatment combining Eastern and Western medicine.
In Udagawa Yoan's Seimi Kaiso, or Introduction to Chemistry (1837), the first
Japanc'~e book to introduce Western chemistry, we find not a few quotations from
Chinese books including the T'ien Kung K'ai Wu, or Exploitation of the Works of
Nature (1637), and others. This is another example of the blending of Eastern and
Western knowledge in Japan. In general, however, a full-scale blend of Chinese and
Western science and technology did not take place in Japan. Traditional Japanese
mathematics (wasan), which originated in China, and Chinese medicine and pharmacy,
which flourished in the Tokugawa Period, were not incorporated in the new
institutionalization of science and medicine in the Meiji Period (1868-1912). They were
almost completely replaced by Western science and medicine.
However, the rich vocabulary of Chinese ideograms, capable of expressing
technical terms, was highly useful for the reception of Western science. For instance,
Kaitai Shisho, or The New Book of Anatomy (1774), Japan's first translation of Western
anatomy, was published at a time when Chinese studies flourished: therefore, it was
written in literary Chinese. New technical terms were created by using Chinese
ideograms for concepts of Western medicine which had no equivalents in Chinese
medicine.
The most famous example was shinkei ( ~0~ nerve), a concept which did not exist in
Chinese medicine. The Japanese coined the new term, shinkei, by combining two
existing Chinese ideograms, shin (the mind) and kei (the warp). It is still in use both in
Japan and China.
Udagawa was a competent translator of Dutch books in the early nineteenth
century. He was the first to introduce Lavoisierean terminology in chemistry, and
Linnaean taxonomy in botany. Terms created by him such as sanso ( I I ~ oxygen), suiso
( ~ g hydrogen) and so on, and ko (Jlclass), moku ( [] order), zoku (Iggenera), and shu
( 1!1species), are still in use. All of these are coined by using Chinese ideograms. 2
The Japanese translated Dutch books, because, even though Japan was officially
closed until the 1850s, the Dutch were allowed to keep trading missions in Nagasaki.
The translation of English hooks began earlier in China than in J a p a n ; from the 1850s
on, mainly in Shanghai. The Japanese did translation work on their own. A translation
in China, by contrast, was always done by the joint efforts of a Westerner and a Chinese.
2 Eikoh Shimao, 'The Reception of Lavoisier's Chemistry in Japan', Isis, 63 (1972), 309-20 (p. 313).
Some aspects of Japanese science, 1868-1945 71
Westerners, mostly missionaries, dictated translations to Chinese who gave them a

fiterary elaboration. This pattern of translation work in China began with Matteo
Ricci's and Hsii Kuanch'i's translation of Euclid in the seventeenth century, and
continued on down to John Fryer's and Hsfi Shou's workon chemistry in the latter half
of the nineteenth century. Without a Westerner's competence in Chinese, it could not
be accurate. Without literary ability on the Chinese side, it could not be readable. The
Fryer and Hsfi Shou combination gained the highest esteem in translation of chemi.ctry
texts, because both of them satisfied these conditions.
In 1862 Fukuzawa Yukichi, on his first journey to Europe, met a Chinese in
London. They talked about how many people in their respective countries could read
Western books directly. There were over 500 in Japan, while there were only 11 in
China. 3 If the numbers are reliable, it does indicate a difference of attitude toward
Western learning in Japan and China in the middle of the nineteenth century.
The translations from English into Chinese on Western science and on Western
culture were imported into Japan at the end of the Tokugawa Period and early in the
Meiji Period. For instance, the Japanese not only had an introduction to science,
Hobson's Po Wu Hsin Pien (1855) (New Treatise on Natural Philosophy and Natural
History) but also the Bible and T'ien Lu 13 Ch'en (1869), (John Bunyan's Pilorim's
Progress) for the first time through Chinese translations. Chinese books by
missionaries such as E. C. Bridgman's Lien Pano Chi Lf~e(1857)(History of the United
States), and W. A. P. Martin's Wan Kuo Kuno Fa (1864) (International Law)were
greeted in Japan with enthusiasm. W. Lobscheid's Yin Hua Tsu Tien (1866-69)
(Enolish-Chinese Dictionary) exerted influence upon the first, epoch-making Enoiish-
Japanese Dictionary (1873). All of these helped the Japanese to open their eyes towards
the West. The Japanese adopted from Chinese translations at that time such terms as
ka0aku ( ~ c h e m i s t r y ) , daisu ( ~ a l g e b r a ) , bibun ( I t ~ d ~ t i a l ) , sekibun ( ~
integral), etc., which are still in use. We might say that the Japanese profited more than
the Chinese from these Chinese translations. Since the Meiji Restoration in 1868 was a
kind of revolution, agitation was afoot for expelling Confucianism, which supported
the old regime of feudalism. Accordingly, questions of the exclusion or limitation of
Chinese characters, and of romanization, arose. However, even Fukuzawa, the ardent
advocate of Westernization, emphasized the necessity of Chinese learning as well as
Western learning.
It was Nishi Amane who coined the most frequently used term ka0aku ( ~ g science)
in 1874.4 While studying at Leyden, Nishi became interested in Anguste Comte's
classification of sciences. The word ka0aku implies science consisting of individual
disciplines with established domains. It reflects the situation of science in the nineteenth
century. Besides that, Nishi created many new words such as tetsu#aku ( ~
philosophy), shinrioaku ( ~ , ~ psychology), kino (~l~induction), en-eki (~li~
deduction), etc, by combining Chinese ideograms. All of them are now in use in China
as well as Japan.
In the years between 1900 and 1906, the number of Chinese coming to Japan to
study peaked (7000 in 1906). A flood of translated Japanese books in all fields appeared,
texts published in'China. Thus a large number of Japanese-made technical terms using
s Mikiaki Ishikawa, A Bioqraphy of Fukuzawa Yukichi (in Japanese) 4 vols (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten,
1932), 1, 331.
4 Amane Nislfi, "Chisetsu"(On Knowledge), Meirokusha Zasshi, 1874; blishi Amane Zenshu (The Complete
Works ofNishi Amane), 3 vols (Tokyo: Munetaka Shobo, 1960), !, 460.
72 Eikoh Shimao
Chinese characters have been used in China since that time. For instance, kyowakoku
( ~gJltl republic) was coined in non-republican Japan, and has been in use in China.
That is the reason why so many terms are common between Chinese and Japanese. 5
Japanese-made terms were imported into China without resistance, because the
Japanese used existing ideograms, which were common to both countries, e The
Japanese returned to China in the twentieth century the Japanese-made technical terms
they owed to their Chinese legacy over twelve hundred years.
Professor J. K. Fairbank pointed out that Chinese ideograms were the major
obstacle for the Chinese in developing modern science. 7 However, the Japanese in the
Meiji Period proved that Chinese ideograms were not obstructions for Science. On the
contrary, they could be used efficiently for its development. John Fryer, who was
engaged in translation in the Imperial Arsenal in Shanghai for 28 years in the latter half
of the nineteenth century, observed: 'The Chinese language presented no serious

problem for purposes of translation, and the Chinese language like other languages is
capable of growth. 's
2. The Imperial College of Engineerimg meddled on the

Polytechnic Institute in Zurich (ETH)
The Cboshu Fief was the most influential in overthrowing the Tokugawa Regime in
1868. Prior to the Restoration, in 1863, it dispatched a party of five young m e n - - I t o
Hirobumi, Inoue Kaoru, Yamao Yozo, Inoue Masarn, and Endo Kinsuke---to Britain
in secret for a tour of inspection. The illegal departure with the aid of Jardine Matheson
& Company had a significant consequence: introduction of modern engineering
education, and therefore modern technology into Japan. After returning home, Ito and
Inoue participated in politics, Yamao established the Ministry of Public Works as
mentioned below, Inoue Masarn was a central figure in railway construction, and Endo
established the Mint in Osaka.
Edmund Morel, a British engineer in railway construction, suggested to Okuma
Shigenobu, Vice-minister of Civil Affairs, the establishment of a ministry of public
works in the Government. Morel observed that only an authoritative central
government would be able to promote effective establishment of various enterprises,
and therefore, an independent government office to supervise modern technical and
industrial projects should be established. Upon this suggestion, Okuma counselled the
Government to establish the Ministry of Public Works. 9
In 1870, the Ministry of Public Works was established to administer various
official enterprises such as railways, mining, iron foundries, lighthouses, telegraphy,
shipbuilding, etc., and to encourage private enterprises as well.
s Eikoh Shimao,'Scientificand TechnicalTerms in Chinese;their Exchangeand Comparisonbetween

China and Japan' (in Chinese).The Third InternationalCongressof the Historyof ChineseScience,Peking,
1984.
6The Chinese,however,not only usedthe existingideogramsas the Japanesedid, but also createdsome
completely new ideograms for scientificterms. An excellent example is a new ideogram for 'entropy'
(shah0,~.fi), wherethe fireradicalmeansheat,and the body meansquotient,that is to say,dQ/T. A defmition
of entropy is expressedin a singleideogram.However,new Chinese-madescientificideogramswere never
imported into Japan, becausethey were uncommon,strange characters;and moreover,Japanese scientific
terminologyhad been establishedmuch earlier.
7John King Fairbank, The United States and China, 4th edn (Cambridge,Mass., 1979),pp. 74-9 (p. 77).
SAdrian Arthur Bennett, John Fryer: The Introduction of Western Science and Technology into
Nineteenth Century China (Cambridge,Mass., 1969), p. 30.
9Shiryo Oyatoi Gaikokujin(Historical Materials of Foreign Employees)(Tokyo:Shogakkan,1975),p. 20;
'Kobuin Kenchi no Gz~ (Proposition of the Ministryof Public Works), Okuma Monjo, A2 (Okuma MSS).
Ito and Yamao, moving spirits in establishing the Ministry of Public Works,
proposed the establishment of a college of engineering belonging to the Ministry.l o The
idea was based upon Yamao's personal experience; he had spent seven years abroad
including five years' training at the Napier ship-building yard and Anderson College in
Scotland. The Government consulted with Hugh Matheson on personnel and he in
turn consulted with W. J. M. Rankine and Lord Kelvin of Glasgow University. Thus
Henry Dyer, aged 26, who had been educated at Anderson College and Glasgow
University in civil and mechanical en~nnering, and eight other young Scottish and
English experts were chosen for the regular staff at the college of engineering.
The Imperial College of Engineering (Kogakuryo, later renamed Kobu Daioakko)
received a charter in 1871 with Yamao Yozo as President. Ire, Vice-minister of Pubfic
Works: Inoue Kaoru, Vice-minister of Finance: Inoue Masaru, Superintendent of
Mining and Railway, all fellows in fief and now high officials, supported Yamao. A
school was founded, too, which was to train pupils under the age of 16 for two years
before advancing to the College of Engineering. It was called 'the School'. Dyer arrived
in Tokyo in 1873, and was appointed Principal of the College.
The Imperial College of Engineering was to integrate several fields of engineering
but there was as yet no such comprehensive polytechnic institute even in Britain in
those days. The only example was the Polytechnic Institute in Zurich (Eidoen~ssische
Technische Hochschule, Z~rich, abbreviated as ETH) founded in 1855, which consisted
offive Fachschulenat the time of foundation: architecture, civil engineering, mechanical
engineering, chemistry, and forestry. Thus the constitution of the Imperial College of
Engineering was modelled on ETH, although no Swiss experts, only the Scottish and
English, were involved. It seems somewhat strange that it was modelled on ETH, since
it was planned by Scots. The reason is that ETH was highly esteemed and envied by the
British professors of engineering in the 1870s. 11
Dyer, young and enthusiastic, visualized a college of engineering as good as ETH.
This was confirmed by Tanabe Sakuro, a famous civil engineer and a graduate of the
first year, when he visited Dyer in Glasgow where he retired. 12 What is also interesting
is that when Dyer made four colleges into a polytechnic institute in Glasgow, he
modelled it on the Imperial College of Engineering in Tokyo which he had founded. ~3
The Imperial College of Engineering consisted of six departments; civil engineering,
mechanical engineering, telegraphy, architecture, applied chemistry and metallurgy,
and mining. Few polytechnic institutes in the world had so many departments in those
days. It required two years' preparatory, and four years' technical training.
In Dyer's view, polytechnic institutes in France and Germany put too much
emphasis on theory and were impractical, while the British idea was that technical
education was only to be given in practice. Dyer adopted a compromise. Curriculum,
regulations, structure of buildings, arrangement of classrooms, all of these were based
upon Dyer's idea. Since the level of technical education in Scotland was the highest
among English-speaking countries, and was equal to that of Germany, it was a
fortuitous choice to have invited experts from there.
lo Kyu Kobu-Daigakko Shiryo (The Historical Materials of the Imperial College of EngineerinO, and
Supplement) (Tokyo: Seishisha, 1978), p. 4.
lJ D. S. L. Cardwell, The Organization of Science in Enoland (London, 1957), p. 117.
12Kyu Kobu-Daigakko Shiryo, p. 51.
1~ Koichi Matsubara, Tekichokushi Zassan (Essays by Matsubara Koichi) (Tokyo: Kawade Shobo, 1941),
p. 521.
74 Eikoh Shimao
From 1873 to 1885, 49 Western professors and experts were employed by the
College of Engineering. Dyer received the highest salary, $660 per month, Ayrton $500,
and Milne and other professors $350.
All lessons were taught in English. In the last two grades, students spent half a year's
practice in field work which the Ministry of Public Works superintended. Students
came from the samurai class, being selected by fiefs of the whole nation; three students
from a large fief, and one from a small fief. Sixty students were admitted in the first year.
By 1885, 478 students enrolled, and 211 graduated. Students were graded in three
classes according to the results of graduation examinations, and only the first-class
graduates, the top 20 per cent, received M.E. degrees, while other graduates were
awarded no degree. Because of students' dissatisfaction, however, several years later
degre~ were given to the second-class graduates as well. 14 Students of the Imperial
College of Engineering in those days, a graduate said, would have no thought of self,
but only hope to be in the serivce of the nation in developing its wealth and military
strength.
With the completion of buildings in 1878, the opening ceremony of the College of
Engineering was performed in the presence of the Emperor Meiji. From 1880 on, the
Emperor honoured the graduation ceremony by attending every year. The main
building of the College of Engineering was designed by De Boinville, a French architect
and an employee of the Ministry of Public Works, in a French Renaissance style, and
bore the Imperial coats of arms.
The College of Engineering marked many of Japan's 'firsts'. On the occasion of a
performance of an Italian opera at the Grand Hall in 1875, Professor Ayrton switched
on the first electric light in Japan. The Grand Hall of the College was so magnificient
that receptions for distinguished foreign guests, for instance, U.S. President Grant in
1879, were held there.
When a civil war broke out in the Western part of Japan in 1877, six students were
nominated by the President of the College to make a model balloon for test flight in
compliance with a request of the Ministry of Army. An unmanned hydrogen captive-
balloon, six feet in diameter, made of paper, was tested to fly in public. It ascended to a
height of some one hundred feet; then a strong wind blew away the balloon, and it
vanished from sight. Because of the changes in the war, balloons were not used.
In 1878, the School of Fine Arts was founded, attached to the College of
Engineering. It consisted of two divisions: painting and sculpture. Seven professors
were invited from Italy by the time the School of Fine Arts was separated from the
College of Engineering in 1883.
As for Tokyo University, it was founded in 1877 by integrating two educational
institutions, which had been founded by the Tokugawa Shognnate in its last decade,
and therefore had continuity with institutions of the old re,me. By contrast, the
College of Engineering was a product of the efforts of the new re,me. It aimed to be the
best polytechnic institute in the world at one stroke, e x nihilo.
It produced twice as many graduates as the Faculty of Science, Tokyo University,
which was also directed to engineering during its early years. It had come into existence
four years earlier than Tokyo University, and from 1877 to 1886 the University and the
College of Engineering coexisted in Tokyo, the same pattern we find in Germany and
China today.
14Kyu Kobu-Daioakko Shiryo, pp. 133, 179.

In 1886, the Ministry of Public Works was abolished, and the control of the
Imperial College of Engineering was transferred to the Ministry of Education. The
College was incorporated into the newly organized Imperial University (formerly
Tokyo University) as the School of Engineering, against strong remtance from
students and some Western professors, because the academic features of the two
institutions were different, and, according to students the Ministry of Public Works
provided more opportunities of field work on practical projects than the Ministry of
Education.
It is noteworthy that in spite of the importance attached to the Ministry of Public
Works, Japanese teelmical experts were stipulated by the Government to he lower in
otflcial rank, although higher in salary than administrative officials. Moreover, not all
graduates of the College of Engineering were awarded degrees, in contrast to graduates
of Tokyo University as mentioned above, and the latter were always better salaried.
Thus the College ranked lower than the University; engineers lower than
bureaucrats, x5
The Imperial University became an unusual university in the world by including an
extraordinarily large-scale School of Engineering. Thus modern Japanese higher
education put a groat emphasis upon technology from the beginning. Japan's dominant
position in technology today is not without reason.
In 1890, the Imperial University absorbed the Tokyo School of Agriculture and
Forestry (formerly Komaba Agricultural School) which had been superintended by the
Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce. It thus became the world's first university to
include a School of Agriculture.
The Meiji Government employed a large number of Western experts with high
salaries in order to make Japan a modern state, moving rapidly after advanced Western
countries, and private enterprises followed the policy. The number of Western
employees of the Government was over 500 at its peak in 1874, and of private
enterprises over 700 at its peak in 1897. The total number of foreigners employed by the
Government throughout the Meiji Period is conjectured to have been about 3000 from
25 nationalities. 16 It had no parallel in modern world history. The British, particularly
Scots, were predominant in the Ministry of Public Works. The Americans first, and
later the Germans, were predominant in the Ministry of Education, and the French in
the Ministry of Judicature. They exerted cultural influences respectively, but no
country exerted political influence upon the Japanese Government through these
employees. The Government consistently maintained the leadership in policy-making,
and foreign employees remained advisers and helpers, 1~
The Ministry of Public Works, which employed the largest number, used 60 per
cent of its budget for salary for about 130 Western employees in 1880. Naturally, the
Ministry wanted to replace Westerners with the Japanese as quickly as possible.
Moreover, the Emperor ordered every Ministry in 1879 to curtail expenditures,
because of the financial stringency immediately after the civil war. They selected eleven
men from the first graduates of the College of Engineering, and dispatched them
immediately after graduation to Britain, mainly to Glasgow University, to specialize in
eleven fields respectively;, civil engineering, mechanical engineering, shipbuilding,
I s Kobusho Enkaku Hokoim (A H~torical Record of the Ministry of Public Works) (Tokyo: Okurasho,
1889), p. 11.
16Noboru Umetant, Oyatoi Gaifin (The Foreign Employees), (Tokyo: Ifatqhima Kenkyusho Shuppan,
1968), p. 57; Hazel J. Jones, Live Machines: Hired Foreioners and Meiji Japan (Vancouver, 1980), p. 7.
17Umetani (footnote 16), p. 211.
76 Eikoh Shimao
spinning and weaving, telegraphy, architecture, mining, lighthouses, chemistry,

metallurgy, and geology. Among them were those who later won fame, for instance,
Tatsuno Kingo in architecture, and Takamine Jokichi in chemistry.
The situation was the same for Tokyo University, where one-third of the budget
was expended for the salaries of Western professors at the time of its foundation. Here
again Western professors were rapidly replaced with the Japanese. For instance, as far
as the Faculty of Science was concerned, Westerners occupied twelve of the fifteen
chairs at the time of foundation in 1877, but they decreased to only two among thirteen
chairs in 1886.
The British and the Americans were predominant in the Faculties of Science and
Humanities, while the Faculty of Medicine was exceptional, for all the Westerners there
were German. One who remained the longest, for 26 years, was Erwin Baelz, professor
of internal medicine. Modern Japanese medicine was under German guidance for a
quarter of a century. Opinion is divided as to whether it was too short or too long.
Although both the Americans and the Japanese learned from German medicine, the
weaning of Japanese medicine from German medicine was much slower than had been
that of American medicine.
On leaving Tokyo University, Baelz, who had gained great esteem in the eyes of the
Japanese, criticized the all too hasty Japanese attitude toward Western learning as
follows:
The Japanese consider Western learning as if it were a machine which is
transportable to wherever they please. However, Western learning is not a
machine, but an organism. It requires a certain atmosphere to grow it. The
Japanese want to get only the latest fruits from Western experts. But they came
here in order to plant seed. is
Mori Ogai, the great man of letters, who had done research in hygiene in Germany
when young, agreed with Baelz, saying that there was as yet no atmosphere of research
in Japan. 19
The Faculty of Science at Tokyo University was directed to engineering in its early
days, to say nothing of the College of Engineering. Western professors were simply
expected to convey techniques, but not requested to guide research. However, some of
the research-minded Western professors voluntarily guided students in basic study,
inspiring them with the spirit of research. William Edward Ayrton, for instance, arrived
at his post at the age of 25. He emphasized physics, and did research on gravity
measurement with students. Consequently, gravity measurement became one of the
early themes of physics research in Japan.
James Alfred Ewing, a disciple ofP. G. Tait's from Edinburgh University, arrived at
his post in mechanical engineering at the age of 24 at the Faculty of Science, Tokyo
University. He made a world-famous discovery, magnetic hysteresis, during his stay in
Japan. Magnetic research was continued by Nagaoka Hantaro and Honda Kotaro,
and became a strong point of Japanese physics.
John Milne, an expert of mining and metallurgy, taught at the College of
Engineering, and then at the Imperial University. He experienced a strong earthquake
on the very day he arrived in Tokyo. After his second experience of a strong earthquake,
t e Baelz no Nikki (Baelz's Diary) translated by Masahiko Hamabe (Tokyo:Iwanami Shoten, 1939),p. 209.
19Ogai Mori, 'On the Vicissitudeof Western Learning in Japan' (in Japanese), 1902, Ooai Zenshu (The
Complete Works of Ogai) 38 vols (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1974), xxxlv, 221.
he established the Society of Seismology in 1880, the world's first such society. Sekiya
Kiyokage, a disciple of his, was appointed professor of seismology in 1886 as the first
professor of the discipline. 2~
Robert William Atkinson, a disciple of A. W. Williamson's of London University,
did research on a traditional Japanese brewery, and discovered that pasteurization had
been practised for 300 years in Japan, much earlier than Pasteur. His successor as
professor of chemistry was Sakurai Joji.
Edward Divers taught at the Imperial College of Engineering and then at the
Imperial University for 26 years, which is as long as the period Baelz spent at the
Faculty of Medicine. During this time Divers published many papers in the Journal of
the ChemicalSociety of London, as a co-author with his students. J. IL Partington saw
him as one of the representative inorganic chemists of the twentieth century.2x A
disciple of his who worked with him for 20 years was Haga Tamemasa, assistant
professor. Some critics have said that collaboration for such a long time might have
been an obstacle to Haga's evolution as an independent researcher. Ayrton, Ewing, and
Divers were later elected Fellows of the Royal Society of London.
In the 1880s, excellent Japanese research began to appear: for instance, Yoshida
Hikorokuro, a disciple of Atkinson's at Tokyo University, took lacquer as an object of
research in 1884, for it was a proper Japanese product, and of industrial value, and had
scarcely been under scientific investigation. He not only undertook analytical research
of lacquer; but also elucidated chemical reactions in the hardening of lacquer. He
pointed out the existence and action of an oxidizing enzyme in lacquer for the first time
in the world. He is highly esteemed now as an actual discoverer of laccase. While a
student, he was one of the founding members in 1878 of the Chemical Society, which
was renamed the Chemical Society of Tokyo the next year, and in 1921 became the
Chemical Society of Japan. 22
In 1896 Chikashige Masumi, a disciple of Divers, provided a measurement of the
atomic weight of Japanese tellurium. Precise measurement of the atomic weight of non-
European tellurium had been sought, because the order of atomic weight of tellurium
and iodine was reversed in Mendeleev's periodic table. Chikashige's study was highly
thought of by J. L. Meyer as one of five important works of 37 on the atomic weight of
tellurium. The value of the atomic weight of tellurium reported by the international
committee of atomic weights in 1934 coincided exactly with Chikashige's value. 2s
3. Scientific research at a distance

Around the time of the First World War, Japanese science began to be independent.
However, it was not without distinguished research work before that time. The earliest
world-renowned achievement was in medicine, particularly in bacteriology. For
instance, Kitasato Shibasaburo succeeded in the pure cultivation of tetanus bacillus in
Berlin under Robert Koch, and bacteriology was established in Japan with the
20 Manpei Hashimoto, The Beginning of Seismology--Life of Sekiya Kiyokage, the Pioneer (in Japanese)
(Tokyo: Asahi Shinbunsha, 1983). Complementary information on Japanese physics up to 1914 may be
found in R. W. Home and M. Watanabe, 'Physics in Australia and Japan to 1914: A Comparison', Annals of
Science, 44 (1987), 215-35.
21 j. R. Partington, A History of Chemistry, 4 vols (London, 1964), IV, 910.
22 Keizo Kinoshita and Ryozo Goto, 'Hikorokuro Yoshida and his Research', Kaoakushi Kenku (The
Journal of the Japanese Society for History of Chemistry) (1985), 86-93.
2a Eikoh Shimao, 'Masumi Chikashige and Ancient Chemistry of China' (in Chinese), Studies in the
History of Natural Sciences, 6, (1987), 87-91 (p. 87).
78 Eikoh Shimao
foundation of the Research Institute for Infectious Diseases in 1892 in Tokyo, with
Kitasato as director. The discovery of dysentery bacillus by Shiga Kiyoshi was made
there in 1897.
The history of the independence of Japanese science was marked by difficulties and
frustrations. Since Europe was the centre of scientific research in those days, a Japanese
was definitely at a disadvantage when he competed with European scientists. For
instance, when Max von Laue and his co-workers discovered the diffraction of X-rays
by a crystal in 1912 in Munich, many European scientists followed the research.
On seeing yon Laue's paper, Terada Torahiko immediately began research on
diffraction of X-rays. I t took yon Laue many hours to photograph Laue-spots, but
Terada lighted on the happy idea of making the spots visible on a fluorescent screen,
and subsequently reduced significantly the time needed for photographing. He
published two papers in Nature, the first in April and the second in May 1913.
However, he soon found that brilliant work by W. H. Bragg and W. L. Bragg placed
them several months ahead of him.
W. H. Bragg published his first paper in Nature in October 1912, six months earlier
than Terada's publication. But here we must take into account that Bragg obtained von
Laue's paper in England two months earlier than Tcrada in Japan, and moreover it
took Terada about a month to mail his paper from Japan, and be received by Nature.
Bragg was actually ahead of him by about three months.
By the time Terada presented his research orally at a meeting of the physics society
in Tokyo in May 1913, he had obtained a paper by W. L. Bragg mentioning "Bragg's
condition', which had been published in November 1912, so Terada had to mention
that his research was not new. Frustrated, he gave up further research on X-rays. 2" He
was too proud to be a gleaner after European scientists. However, his withdrawal from
this highly topical problem was regrettable.
For their studies, the Braggs were awarded the Nobel Prize, while Terada was
awarded the Imperial Prize of the Japan Academy. But his research on X-rays was, as it
were, a digression. Among his 226 scientific papers, his studies of pure physics were
vastly outnumbered by geophysics, his proper discipline.
The following are only a few examples of his versatile research. Fascinated by
Rayleigh's work on sound, and by Helmholtz's, Terada took acoustical investigation of
the Japanese bamboo flute, shakuhachi, for his doctoral studies. Unlike Western
musical instruments which are uniform, the shakuhachi allows variation in its size and
curve, and therefore is more complicated and delicate. Only a person with an ear for
music could do such research. Blending things traditional with modern science led to
one of his famous achievements. 2s
He investigated the mechanism of the rumbling of the sea (umi-nari), a precursor of a
storm, which had never been investigated either at home or abroad, and found that the
phenomenon was due to an eruption of air caught in wave heads breaking through the
water in escaping. The research led him to the study of the velocity of sea-wave
propagation, and eventually to oceanography in general. His study of the frost problem
led him to various researches in meteorology. He was interested in geodesy, geysers,
2, Kunio Oka, 'The Role of Japanese Physicists in the early Stage of X-ray Diffraction Research' (in
Japanese) Kaoakushi Kenkyu (Journalof History of Science, Japan) 57 (1961), 29-35.
2s Sakuhei Fujiwara, 'Professor Terada Torahiko', (in Japanese) Ka0aku, 6 (1936), 81-5; Torahiko
Terada, Scient~c Papers, 6 vols (Tokyo: lwanami Shoten. 1938), l, 'A Biographical Sketch of Torahiko
Terada'. v-xxiii.
Some aspects of Japanese science, 1868-I 945 79
volcanoes, and seismology. He was an important member of the Earthquake Research

Institute annexed to Tokyo University, which was established after the catastrophic
earthquake in Tokyo in 1923. Being intersted in aerophysics, particularly in the study
of vortices, he was one of the leading scientists at the Aeronautical Research Institute.
Besides his professorship at Tokyo University, he presided over many laboratories at
several different research institutes concurrently.
Terada used to emphasize that laws of natural science did not express concrete facts
of nature, but simply were their abstraction. He laid stress on the concrete rather than
the abstract. Thus he used to take up as an object of research concrete facts which
surrounded us, and were remote from the central problems of highly abstract physics.
A student and a life-long friend of Natsume Soseki, he won fame as a man of letters
too, particularly as an essayist blending literature and science, a devoted haiku poet,
and an author of scholarly treatises on hai/m. Modern haiku theory pays high regard to
realism. Breaking through conventionalism, it attempts to describe nature as it is. He

adopted haiku realism, as it were, in his scientific research of various concrete aspects of
n a t u r e . 26
Thus he made research on daily life phenomena, physical phenomena outside the
mainstream of physics, such as the flickering of a sparkler firework (senko-hanabO, and
the growth of the jagged points of confetti (konpeito). The problem of fluctuation which
plays an important role in the growth of an individual piece of confetti had been
completely neglected by physicists. In Terada's words, it was beyond physicists'
capability, so they closed their eyes to it. 2~
He investigated the marbling techniques (sumi-naoashi) of Chinese black ink (sum/)
as problems of colloid physics and surface film. zs It was Terada also who pioneered in a
new field of treating cracks as an object of scientific research. Cracks and fissures on all
solid matters are familiar phenomena in our daily life, not to mention the geophysical
phenomena of changes of the earth's crust. However, research on the mechanical
destruction of matter had been left untouched, for it was very difficult to systematize
with the elegant mathematical formulas used for other fields. Terada elucidated the
existence of statistical law between an impact and the arrangement, number, and length
of cracks which it caused. Interest in fissure led Terada further into biological
phenomena. He pointed out that the mechanism of cell cleavage should he rendered as
a phenomenon ofcracks in a broader sense. Thus he took up research on spotted c a t s . 29
These analyses were extremely complicated, and were likely to be without reward; and
yet he attempted to elucidate them with his ingenuity.
His favourite objects of research were those which eluded precise mathematical
analysis. He became interested in statistical phenomena first in meteorology and
earthquakes, and then in the wider phenomena of social and human affairs. Hemade an
important discovery, pseudoperiodicity, which was an apparent periodicity appearing
in accidental phenomena--appearing very often in geophysical phenomena. His
discovery was later given a strict mathematical proof, and became an indisputable
theory.
2e Jun Ishiwara, "Characteristic Feature of Terada Physics' (in Japanese), Shiso, 166 (1936), 413-24.
2~ Hiroshi Fukushima, 'Konpeito' (in Japanese), Sh~so, 166 (1936), 521-5 (p. 522).
2s Torahiko Terada, 'Experimental Studies on Colloid Nature of Chinese Black Ink. Part I.', Scient~c
Papersof the Institute of Physical and ChemicalResearch, 23 (1934), 173-84; Kamekichi Shiba, "Sumi-naoash~,
Shiso, 166 (1936), 501-6.
29 Morizo Hirata, 'Cracks' (in Japanese), Shiso, 166, (1936), 516-20.
80 Eikoh Shimao
Later, immediately after his death, many scholars in Japan spoke of the above-
mentioned studies on everyday physical phenomena as outside the mainstream of
physics, and called it 'Terada physics', which implies a kind of diversion and even an
escape from up-to-date problems. Recently, however, 'Terada physics' gave rise to
discussions and criticism against the trend of modern physics. For instance, Tomonaga
Shin-ichiro, a Nobel laureate in physics of 1965, in his later years, observed as follows:
'Beside science which develops an extraordinary world in front of us by experiments
which drastically change nature in order to search for a universal law, there is another
kind of science even in physics which finds out laws in ordinary nature and daily life
without experiments.'3~ It is geophysics which he refers to here, and he must have been
thinking of Terada.
We might add that he was very much interested in reading Lucretius, and w~rotean
essay of about 70 pages on 'Lucretius and Science'. Terada was the first Japanese
physicist to treat Lucretius seriously. Summing up, he wrote as follows:

An important goal of modern exact science is the application of higher
mathematics and measurement with precise instruments. Put bare-handed
Lucretius on one hand, and voluminous mathematical books and scientific
instruments on the other hand. Lucretius made a basis of physical science with
bare hands, while mindless books and instruments alone would not advance
science at all. Einstein and de Broglie might not have read Lucretius, but it is
Lucretius in their minds that exerted the initial impulse on their creative works. Is
not science, after all, an intuition rewritten in an intelligible language? Is not
intuition the last conclusion of scientific books in an indecipherable langnage?31
He said that he was lost in wild fancy when reading Lucretius. As a geophysicist, he
paid special attention to Book Six of Lucretius' work, which he said included many
interesting descriptions for modern meteorologists, seismologists, and geologists.
Up to this time, most of the scientists came from the samurai class with its high
intellectual milieu. Suzuki Umetaro, on the contrary, was the first major scientist from
the farmer class, an indication of a new age. Since his home was an out-of-the-way
place, he ran away to Tokyo to study in difficult circumstances. Fortunately the Tokyo
School of Agriculture and Forestry, which he attended, was incorporated into the
Imperial University in 1890. Suzuki automatically became an Imperial University
graduate, and later its faculty member. Suzuki studied agricultural chemistry under
Oscar Loew, a German professor, at the Tokyo School of Agriculture. Being
dispatched to Europe to study, he chose Emil Fischer as his mentor. Fischer esteemed
him so highly for his success in the synthesis of tripeptide, a task he had assigned him,
that he requested the Japanese government extend his term of study. As Suzuki left
Berlin, Fischer advised him not to choose themes European scientists would choose,
but to select a theme proper to Japan, fearing that he would not be able to play an even
game with them. He recommended to him research works something like 'Terada
physics'.
Properly speaking, agricultural science had national characteristics. Suzuki did
research on a remedy for beriberi, a grave matter in those days in Japan as a nutrition
problem. He extracted a nutritive substance, efficacious with beriberi cases, from rice-
bran in 1910, naming it oryzanin (equivalent to vitamin B, in the later nomenclature),
30Shin-ichiro Tomonaga, What is Physics? (in Japanese), 2 vols (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1979), u, 213.
31Torahiko Terada, 'Lucretius and Science' (in Japanese), Terada Torahiko Zenshu (The Complete
Works of Terada Torahiko) 18 vols (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1950), m, 44-116.
since the technical term of rice was oryzae sativa. He insisted, for the first time in the
world, that in addition to protein, fat, carbohydrate, and inorganic elements, some
trace nutrient was essential to life.
Ironically enough, what was undertaken as a theme proper to Japan turned out
to be a universal problem, and he had t o compete with a European scientist.
Suzuki's paper in Japanese was published in the Journal of the Chemical Society of
Tokyo in 1911, and then was abstracted in Zentralblattf ~ Biochemieund Biophysik in
August 1911.
Casimir Funk, a Polish chemist in England, extracted the same substance from rice-
bran, which was difficult to obtain in Europe, by the same method as Suzuki~ and
named it 'vitamin' without reference to its nutritional siL~mificance. Funk submitted his
paper to the Journal of Physiolooy in December 1911, and it was published the next
year. Since the Zentralblatt was a fairly famous journal, Funk could have noticed
Suzuki's research, and could have followed it. Although Suzuki's priority was
unquestioned, it was not recognized world-wide. 32 This reflects the situation of
Japanese science at that time.
At home, since he was not a medical doctor btit an agricultural chemist, his
discovery of the remedy of beriberi remained unrecognized for a long time, and was
even attacked in medical circles. As a pioneer of agricultural chemistry, Suzuki was the
first scientist from the School of Agriculture to be awarded the Prize of the Japan
Academy in 1924. The following year he became an Academy member. Suzuki was one
of the key scientists and science administrators from the 1910s to the 1940s.
lshiwara Jtm, son of one of Japan's early Protestant clergymen, was the first full-
scale theoreticai physicist in Japan. He pursued the same themes in the same way as did
European scientists. He published 38 papers, all in German, from 1909 to 1918 on
relativity and quantum theories and the electronic theory of metals. His first paper on
relativity theory, Japan's first such paper, appeared as early as 1909, and his first paper
on quantum theory, also Japan's first, appeared in 1911, the year that the first Solvay
Congress was held on quantum theory.
Before going abroad to study, he estabfished himself as an independent researcher,
and published 14 papers, two-thirds of which treated problems of relativity theory. The
most noteworthy among them is a paper on the theory of light quantum. It shows that
he belonged to a minority in support of Einstein's hypothesis of light quantum. The
paper was dated 10 October 1911, so it preceded the Solvay Congress, which was held
from 30 October to 3 November. Although the Congress recognized the concept of
quantum, it did not consider light quantum.
Immediately after graduation from Tokyo University, he was deeply impressed by
Einstein's first paper on the theory of relativity, which was published in the same year.
Ishiwara commented in later years on Einstein: His arguments were not so rigid as
those of other German scientists, but had a certain looseness. Instead of mentioning
abstract principles alone, he used to exemplify the specific and the concrete, and
generalized them.'
Notwithstanding his sympathy and respect for Einstein, it was Sommerfeld in
Munich that he contacted first in 1912. He then attended the colloquium in Berlin,
and only after that did he go to Zurich to see Einstein in 1913. During his stay in Europe
he published eight papers. In this period he launched forth into an extension of the
32Life of Professor Suzuki Umetaro (in Japanese) (Tokyo: Asakura Shoten, 1967), p. 147; The Collected
Papers of Dr Suzuki Umetaro, 5 vols (Tokyo: Hokko Shobo, 1947).
82 Eikoh Shimao
special theory of relativity, a research on gravity theory. His name was referred to in a
review in 1915 as a researcher on the formation of the general theory of relativity
together with the names of Einstein, Abraham, and Nordstrtm.
The First World War broke out in the year he returned home. Communication with
German colleagues stopped, and there was as yet no Japanese colleague with whom he
could converse; 16 papers published in this period treated quantum theory and
relativity theory in equal proportion. He was awarded the Imperial Prize of the Japan
Academy in 1919) 3
Besides being a theoretical physicist, he was also a well-known professional poet.
He had to resign from his chair at Tohoku University in 1921 because of his love affair
with a fellow poetess, which was perceived as a scandal. Such was the social climate in
those days; in his golden age as a scientist, he was broken. In those days, places of
scientific research were restricted to Imperial Universities, and neither private
universities nor private research institutes were advanced or wealthy enough to afford
scientific research. Consequently resignation from an Imperial University meant the
end of one's scientific career. He was an isolated researcher, and he had held his chair
too briefly to train disciples. Japan had to wait until the 1930s, when a group of
theoretical physicists appeared. Stagnation at the end of the 1910s, afliicted not only
Ishiwara as an individual, but also Japanese theoretical physics as a whole.
Einstein visited Japan in 1922, before the sensation of Ishiwara's affair had passed.
So both Einstein and Ishiwara were followed about by reporters on their tour of
Japan. 34 Ishiwara's activity thereafter was as a scientific journalist and he wrote an
excellent book on relativity theory. As an editor-in-chief of Kagaku (Science) since its
foundation in 1931, he criticized the fascist control of science immediately before the
Second World War. His reputation as a scientific journalist and a popularizer of new
physics overshadowed his achievements as a theoretical physicist; our first theoretical
physicist fell into oblivion even within the physicists" circle.
It was the close-mindedness of Japanese academic circles that drove Noguchi
Hideyo to the United States. Noguchi aspired to a medical and scientific career, and
was allowed to be an assistant in the Research Institute for Infectious Diseases in
Tokyo. However, there was no prospect of his promotion to a full membership, because
he was not a graduate of the Imperial University. 3s
In the United States he started his research career as an assistant to Silas Weir
Mitchell in Philadelphia, an authority on snake venom. From his first publication he
was allowed co-authorship with two eminent scholars, Mitchell and Simon Flexner.
Such freedom and acceptance was unimaginable in Japan in those days. 36
Noguchi was appointed one of nine original members in the newly founded
Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in 1904, and was promoted to full
membership in 1914. It was in American medical circles that Noguchi grew to be a first-
class researcher. The Imperial Prize of the Japan Academy awarded him in 1915 merely
confirmed his reputation and recognition in the United States.
3s Shunkichi Hiraoka, 'Ishiwara Jun' (in Japanese), Kagaku, 50 (1980), 768-74; Sigeko Nisio et aL, 'A
Catalogue of ishiwara Jun's writings' (in Japanese), N ihon UniversityBulletin of GeneralEducation, 39 (1986),
51-61; 40 (1987), 77-85.
34 Tsutomu Kan9 Einstein Shock to Japan (in Japanese), 2 vols (Tokyo: Kawade Shobo, 1981), 1I, 65.
3s Eikoh Shimao, 'Hideyo Noguchi', $cienzitati e technologi contemporanei (Milan: Mondadori, 1974);
J. R. Plesset, Noguchi and the Patrons (Japanese edition) (Tokyo: Seiwa Shobo, 1987), p. 53.
36 Tsurukichi Okumura, Hideyo Noguchi (in Japanese) (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1933), p. 287.
The Japanese regard Noguchi as a Japanese medical scientist, while quite naturally
the Americans see Noguchi as a figure in the history of American medicine. Noguchi's
career bears witness to the provincialism of Japanese academic circles.
In this period a new type of research institute was established to promote scientific
research in Japan. Stimulated by the existence of the Physikalisch-Technische
Reichsanstalt (1887) in Germany, the National Physical Laboratory (1900) in Britain,
and the Bureau of Standards (1903) in America, the founding of a large-scale research
institute for Japan was suggested first in 1908. But it was Takamine Jokichi's appeal in
1913 to the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce and financial circles which was
finally influential: Takamine came home temporarily from the United States, where he
had seen the foundation of one research institute after another:. Belt Telephone (1884),
Du Pont Experimental Station (1903), Carnegie Institution (1902), Mellon Institute
(1913). In Germany the Kaiser Wilhelm GeseHschaft was established in 1911, including
ten laboratories.
Takamine compared the cost of founding a large-scale research institute to the cost
of building a large battleship. A battleship would be obsolete in ten years, while a
research institute would increasingly yield results, so he said. However, the
Government and financial circles in those days could not afford such a large
expenditure, and therefore planned a chemical research institute in order to promote
the chemical industry, which was still at a primitive stage.
With the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, medicines, dyestuffs, and other
chemicals could not be imported; this consequently caused serious problems for
national hygiene and industry. The Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce organized a
committee of the chemical industry to devise a countermeasure. The pressing need of
the time, they concluded again, was a chemical research institute.
Soon they changed this plan and proposed instead a research institute for physics
and chemistry, since the two sciences could not be separated. The Government
appropriated two hundred and fifty thousand yen for establishing the institute in the
fiscal year 1916. Private donations were reported to be over two million yen by 1917.
The Emperor granted one million yen immediately after the foundation. Thus the
Institute of Physical and Chemical Research (Rikaoaku Kenkyusho, abr. Riken) was
established in 1917 under semi-governmental management. It was located near Tokyo
University.
Some professors and associate professors of four Imperial Universities, Tokyo,
Kyoto, Tohoku, and later Osaka, were concurrently appointed members of the
Institute. Sakurai Joji, the patriarch of the chemical circles, and who shared efforts in
establishing the Institute with Takamine, made the surprising remark in his memoirs
that when he was Professor of Chemistry at the Faculty of Science, Tokyo University,
the budget did not include expenditure for research, so he conducted minimal research
with part of the expenses for students' laboratories training. 37 This meant that the
practice of research was not yet a part of the function of the Imperial University during
his tenure of office, 1882-1919. Therefore, the establishment of the Institute greatly
aided the laboratories of professors who became involved.
Among Imperial Universities, only Tohoku University was open to women and
those who did not come through the regular preparatory course. Accordingly
laboratories affiliated with Tohoku University alone could attract such people, but
37Joji Sakurai, Reminiscences, being Memoirs by the Baron Sakm'ai Joji (in Japanese) (Tokyo: Kyuwakai,
1940), p. 18.
84 Eikoh Shimao
eventually other laboratories in the Institute followed. At a time when there were few
women scientists even in Europe, the Institute was the only place in Japan open to
women aspiring to scientific careers.
Kuroda Chika and Tange Ume received B.Sc. degrees in chemistry at Tohoku
University in 1918, the first women to do so. Kuroda, having done a year's research in
England, joined the Institute in 1922 as the first woman scientist, and received the
Doctor of Science degree in 1929, the second earliest to be awarded to a woman, for her
study of natural dyestuffs. Tange, having obtained the Ph.D. degree for a study ofsterol
at Johns Hopkins, joined the Institute, and later received the Doctor of Agricultural
Science degree.
When the government financed a woman scientist for study abroad in those days, it
was implicitly assumed that she would continue to be unmarried for the rest of her life.
Moreover, domestic science was added explicitly together with natural science as a
theme for a woman's study in a written order by the Ministry of Education, even if she
was an expert in science like Kuroda. 3s
In 1921 Viscount Okochi Masatoshi aged 43, a descendant of a feudal lord, was
appointed Director of the Institute in place of the aged patriarchs. We might conjecture
that the appointment, which was not based upon the seniority rule as was usually the
case in Japan, was due to the fact that he was the only peer among institute members,
since the first and second directors were barons: he had been a member of the House of
Peers, and so had contacts with the government. Besides being a member of the
Institute since its foundation, he was professor of military engineering at Tokyo
University. Although the Department of Military Engineering had been founded in
1887, together with the Department of Gunpowder, Okochi was the first full-time
professor since 1911, for hitherto either Army or Navy officers had been concurrently
appointed professor. He introduced scientific bases into the amorphousness of the
discipline, and opened two courses, physics experiments and general physics, as
curricula of the department, for the first time in the history of engineering education in
this country. Only two years after graduation, he was a founding member, in 1905, of
the Society of Gunpowder and Arms, which lasted for 40 years.
He abolished the departments of physics and chemistry in the Institute, and
adopted an epoch-making system featuring a chief-researcher. In this system a chief-
researcher is in charge of an independent laboratory. The chief-researcher's laboratory
was given his name: for instance, Okocld Laboratory, Terada Laboratory, etc. The
budget, choice of subjects, and personnel were at his disposal. When the system started,
there were 14 chief-researchers, including the director. The Institute in the new system
enjoyed far greater freedom than universities which were inflexible with their system of
definite numbers of chairs.
There were 33 chief-researchersin 1942, of whom 20 held Doctor of Science degrees,
nine Doctor of Engineering degrees, two Bachelor of Engineering degrees, and only one
Ph.D., an American degree. Suzuki Umetaro was the only person holding the degree of
Doctor of Agricultural Science. That is to say, two-thirds were from the Faculty of
Science, one-third from the Faculty of Engineering, and Suzuki was the only person
from the Faculty of Agriculture. Laboratory members numbered six at the least, and
100 at the most and the average w a s 24. 39
3s Michiko Kagawa, 'Kuroda Chika, a Pioneer Woman Scientist' (in Japanese) Shizen, 24 (1969), 60-3
(p. 6o).
39Kenkyu Nijuoonen (A Report of Researchfor Twenty-five Years)(Tokyo: Rikagaku Kenkyusho, 1942),
p. 5.
Some aspects of 3apanese science, 1868-1945 85
There were about 200 members in 1918, but the number increased to 340 in 23
laboratories in 1925, 610 in 22 laboratories in 1930, 750 in 27 laboratories in 1935, and
1800 in 33 laboratories in 1940, because there were no fixed numbers in each
laboratory. 4~
Chemical laboratories and their equipment were desiged by Tamaru Setsuro, who
had been engaged in research on ammonia synthesis under Fritz Haber for six years.
Tamaru's designs followed those of the Chemical Laboratory of the Kaiser Wilhelm
Institute in Berlin.al
The Institute laid stress on the machine shop, an auxiliary facih'ty since its
foundation. They not only allowed young researchers to study abroad, but also
machinists in the shop; at the foundation of the Institute, for instance, one machinist
went to Harvard University to study high pressure and precision technique under
Bridgman, and another went to Chicago University to study how to produce a grating
ruling engine under Michelson. The Institute spared no expense to employ a German
expert on glass-work, with a salary five times as high as that of the average Japanese
artisan. Machinists and artisans in the Institute numbered about 40 in 1925, 100 in
1929, 180 in 1940, and over 600 in 1945. The machine shop grew into a department
producing scientific instruments around 1940. The policy of laying stress on the
machine shop proved to be highly useful. Machinists and artisans with skill and pride
supported the high level of research of the Institute.
Since Okochi was keenly aware that the State did not fully support the Institute, he
decided in 1927 to found a profitable corporation, Rikagaku-kogyo, in order to
industrialize inventions made in the Institute, and to sell products. Thus Adsol (a
hygroscopic material), various kinds of gauges, vitamin A, and synthetic sake were
manufactured and sold. Vitamin A and the synthetic sake, invented by Suzuki Lab.,
turned out to be the most profitable, and greatly contributed to supporting basic
research activities of the Institute. Profit through selling vitamin A alone was supposed
to be double the subsidy from the Government. The machine shop also gradually
shifted the emphasis from producing instruments exclusively for members of the
Institute to producing on a commercial basis. Several affdiated corporations grew out
of the machine shop. Okochi increased corporations one after another until there were
over 60 in the 1940s. Minor enterprises that they were, these industrial groups as a
whole constituted the Riken Concern.
The Riken Concern was to provide support for research in the Institute. Its purpose
was to produce and sell medicine, chemicals, food, machines, and instruments which
were credited to the Institute. Domestic and foreign patents obtained by the Institute
were respectively about 10 and 0 in 1920, 90 and about 20 in 1925, 275 and 96 in 1930,
431 and 118 in 1935, and 620 and 150 in 1940.
Although the Institute had no function of conferring the doctor's degree, it could
offer facilities and opportunities to do dissertation work. In the first 25 years after the
foundation, 118 persons earned doctor's degrees through work done in the Institute,
and 93 persons were appointed professors and associate professors at universities.
40 Shizen (1978), Special Issue on the Sixtieth Anniversary of the Institute of Physical and Chemical
Research (in Japanese), p. 171.
41 Kazuo Sato, 'Professor Setsuro Tamaru' (in Japanese), Kagaku, 19 (1964), 132-5 (p. 133).
86 Eikoh Shimao
4. The growth of science in a militaristic age

Science and technology in Japan made rapid progress in the first twenty years of the
Showa Period, 1926-1945, from the beginning of the Showa Period through the end of
the Second World War. For instance, if we count t h e number of graduates from
faculties of science at universities as 100 in 1926, the number increased as follows: 133 in
1930, 168 in 1935, 202 in 1940, and 419 in 1945. Subsidies for research increased
remarkably and science was mobilized for war during this time.
At the very beginning of the Showa Period, as a sign of the mobilization of science,
the Bureau of National Resources was established by the Cabinet in 1927 in order to
investigate natural resources at home and abroad, and to prepare for their control in
times of emergency. The Bureau designated 40 research items of national importance in
1933, from special steel to marine breeding products. This was the first time the State
designated important research items. The Japanese invasion into the Northeastern
district of China had taken place in 1931.
In 1931 scientists suggested a sharp increase in research expenditure. One scientist
pointed Out in his speech at the House of Peers that Germany, which was defeated in the
First World War, annually expended four million yen (in Japanese money)
notwithstanding suffering from hunger, and Britain, which was financially in a worse
way than Japan, expended seven million yen, while the Japanese Government paid 250
thousand yen to the Institute of Physical and Chemical Research, the only research
institute, and the Ministry of Education paid only 60 thousand yen for encouraging
natural science.
The Japan Society for Promotion of Science (JSPS) was established the next year,
and the subsidy for research expenses rapidly increased as the JSPS began its activity.
The main purpose of the JSPS was to promote comprehensive projects which
organized researchers above the barriers found between universities regarding the
above-mentioned nationally important research items.
The following are ten items in the order of the total subsidy given in the first ten
years after 1933 when the activity of the JSPS began: aviation fuel, wireless apparatus,
cosmic rays and atomic nuclei, steel for special purposes, manufacture of special steel
materials, resolution of problems of natural resources during shortages, preventing
corrosion, manufacture of ingots, organic synthesis, and electric materials.
It is surprising to find that a purely academic item such as cosmic rays and atomic
nuclei, ranked as number 3 among items of military and industrial significance. Indeed
Japan constructed more accelerators than Germany and the Soviet Union from 1933
through the end of the Second World War, though fewer than the United States and
Britain. Yukawa's discovery of the meson theory was published in 1935. Although
theoretical research on nuclear physics was not sufficiently subsidized, it was definitely
related to cosmic rays and atomic nuclei. Historians have pointed out that Japanese
studies in the field flourished more before and during the Second World War than after.
During the time from the Japanese invasion into the Northeastern district of China
in 1931 to the beginning oftbe full-scale Sino-Japanese war in 1937, fourteen national
research institutions were established, four of them annexed to universities.
The Japanese Government was conspicuously enthusiastic in encouraging science
in the 1930s. But it was the promotion of science aimed at the militarization of the State.
With the appointment of General Araki Sadao, the leading ultra-nationalist, as the
Minister of Education in 1938, a vast budget of grants-in-aid for scientific research was
created for the first time in the history of the Ministry of Education.
Concurrently with this the control of thought and speech was tightened. Not only
Marxism but also liberalism was subjected to suppression. Ultra-nationalists rapidly
became influential, and they attacked science in various ways. A certain ultra-
nationalist scholar insisted in 1932 as follows: it was Darwinism that aided the
prevalence of Marxism, therefore, the State had better forbid study of Darwinism.
In 1933 ultra-nationalists opposed the unification of weights and measures by the
metric system, which was to be enforced from 1934 on, and insisted on the
maintainance of the traditional Japanese system of weights and measures as well. They
feared emotionally that the overall adoption of the metric system would destroy
traditional Japanese culture, and would lead to worship of things Western, and
therefore lead to contempt for the State. .2 Eventually the Government decided by a
large margin to postpone the abolition of the traditional system until 1958.
Two incidents shocked the whole nation. One was the denunciation of the emperor-
as-an-organ theory in 1935 by the ultra-nationalists. This theory, maintaining that the
State was a juridical person and the Emporer its organ in interpreting the Meiji
Constitution, had long been taught at Tokyo University without trouble: but it had
been opposed by the emperor-as-a-sovereign theory of another professor in the same
university. The controversy had remained an academic problem, until suddenly in 1935
it became a serious political problem. The author of the theory was purged from public
service, and his books were suppressed, reminding us of Galileo's case. The other event
was the coup d'~tat in the very centre of Tokyo on 26 February 1936. Japan definitely
inclined toward fascism after these incidents. Education and culture were put under
ultra-nationalist control.
Most scientists kept silent about the ultra-nationalist control. Ishiwara Jun was
among the few who resisted the trend. He no longer had a position as academic
scientist, but was editor-in-chiefof a journal, Kagaku (Science). He insisted in 1937 that
the only way to avoid the danger of fascism was to adhere to genuine scientific spirit. He
referred to instances of repression and distortion of science through politics such as the
advocacy of 'German science', and the deportation of Jewish scientists by the Nazis,
and Lysenkoism in the Soviet Union.4a
During the period in question, research institutions established by the Japanese in
China carried great weight for Japanese science. The oldest and largest institution was
the Central Chemical Laboratory (Chuo Shikensho), founded in 1907 in Dairen, in the
South Manchuria Railway Company. The South Manchuria Railway Company was a
national policy corporation founded in 1905 by taking over the interests of the railways
between Changchun and Port Arthur through the peace treaty with Russia. It
administered not only the railways, but also other transport such as car traffic, water
transport, and harbours. Besides these, it covered a wide range of affairs: the mining
industry, investigation, colonization, and supervision of alfdiated corporations. A
concern of more than fifty corporations, it had two hundred thousand employees in
1945. Goto Shinpei, the first President of the South Manchuria Railway Company, laid
stress on investigation and research. Thus the Investigation Division and the Central
Chemical Laboratory were founded.
Within about 40 years from its foundation, the Central Chemical Laboratory was
reorganized four times to meet the needs of the times. In the final stage, from 1936, to
,2 "Shakkanho Sonzoku Renmei Shuisho' (A Prospectus of the Maintenance of the Shaku and Kan System
League), a document submitted to the government in 1933 by Nagakage Okahe, the chief of the league.
(aJun Ishiwara, Kaoaku to Shakai.Bunka (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten) 1937), pp. 113 and 119,
88 Eikoh Shimao
1945, the Laboratory became an independent institution under the direct control of the
president of the South Manchuria Railway Company, and consisted of seven
departments: physics and physical chemistry, inorganic chemistry, electrochemistry,
metallurgy, organic chemistry, fuel chemistry, and agricultural chemistry. Besides
these, there were such facilities as pilot plants and chemical engineering laboratory. 44
The fuel chemistry department was comparatively larger than the rest. The great
feature of the Laboratory was the overall research on each subject, from basic research
to pilot production, and finally industrialization. Nowhere else was such whole-stage
research made on a single subject. More than 20 corporations emerged from such
research done at the Laboratory. They were precursors of the Japanese chemical
industry today.
In 1945 it had about 1000 members, of whom 200 were senior researchers. It had 150
subjects of study, and a budget of about ten million yen. It alone could rival the Institute
of Physical and Chemical Research in Tokyo. In about 40 years from 1907 through
1945, about 1000 research reports were published; 140 patents were obtained, of which
20 per cent were foreign patents. 45
The Shanghai Science Institute (ShanghaiShizenkaoakuKenkyusho)was founded in
Shanghai in 1931 with the aid of indemnities from the Boxers' Incident. Properly
speaking it was planned as a research institute for joint research work by Japanese and
Chinese scientists. However, since the Japanese invasion policy was undisguised, the
Chinese side formally withdrew from the plan. Even then, however, some Chinese
researchers participated; the Institute's scientific personnel numbered 70 in 1942, 16 of
them being Chinese. It had two divisions, science and medicine, and seven departments:
physics, chemistry, biology, geology, pathology, bacteriology, and Chinese pharmacy.
It was supplied with a very sufficient budget compared with research institutes in the
homeland. Its major contributions were studies on matters relevant to China. 46
The Institute of Scientific Research (Tairiku Kaoakuin) was founded in Hsin-king
(now Changchun) as a national institution of Manchukuo, a puppet state. It was
Okochi Masatoshi, Director of the Institute of Physical and Chemical Research, who
was requested to make a plan of the national institution. The Japanese name, Tairiku
Kahakuin, literally 'the Continental Academy of Science', was named after Okochi's
ambitious concept that the Institute was to be aimed at developing not only
Manchukuo, but also the Asiatic Continent. 47 According to the plan, they achieved in
Manchukuo what was not to be realized in the homeland. Researchers were called
research officials, and ranked as high officials, superior to administrative officials.
44 Masanori Sato, 'Last Days of the Central Chemical Laboratory of the South Manchuria Railway
Company after the end of the War' (in Japanese), Nihon Kagaku Kooyo (Japan Chemical Industry), 8 (1960),
32-3 (p. 32); Minami Manshu Tetsudo Kabushiki.kaisha Sanjunen Ryakushi (An Abridged History of Thirty
Years of the South Manchuria Railway Company) (Dairen: Minami Manshu Tetsudo Kabushiki-kaisha,
1937), pp. 599-603; Tsuneya Marusawa, Construction of New China and the Central Chemical Laboratory of
the South Manchuria Railway Company) (in Japanese) (Tokyo: Nigatsusha, 1979), pp. 180-1, 221-5.
4s Masanori Sato, Reminiscences of a Scientist (in Japanese) (Kyoto: Kagaku-dojin, 1971), pp. 154, 222
and 229; Manshu Kaihatsu Yonjunenshi (A History of Forty Years of Developin0 Manchuria) edited by
Manshikai (Tokyo: Manshu Kaihatsu Yonjunenshi Kankokai, 1964), pp. 577--644.
46 The Bulletin of the I Oth Anniversary of the Shanohai Science Institute (in Japanese)(Shanghai: Shanghai
Shizenkagaku Kenkyusho, 1942); Hidezo Sato, 'The Shanghai Science Institute' (in Japanese) Kaizo, 23
(1941), 395--40O.
*70kochi Masatoshi, Man and Work (in Japanese), edited by Okochi Kinenkai (Tokyo: Nikkan
Kogyosha, 1954), p. 51.
Some aspects of .lapanese science, 1868-19#5 89
Moreover, unlike government research institutes in the homeland, which belonged

separately to different Ministries, and jealously defended sectional authority, in
Manchukuo they established a single unified research institution, the Continental
Academy of Science.
Suzuki Umetaro, the leading agricultural chemist, served as the second director
from 1940 through 1944. Almost atl members were Japanese. Its scientific personnel
numbered 128 in 1938, and 16 of them were Chinese.4s The characteristic feature of the
Institute was agricultural chemistry and related subjects as suggested under the
directorship of Suzuki. Laboratories were opened for the following subjects
respectively: agricultural chemistry, forestry chemistry, horticultural chemistry,
biological chemistry, organic chemistry, inorganic chemistry, electrochemistry, fuel
chemistry, metallurgy, mechanical engineering, power, drainage, cattle plague,
geological survey, etc. All this was a rehearsal of the mobilization of science by the state,
which was not so easily feasible in the homeland.

A general mobilization was established in 1938, and a general plan of science
mobilzation was decided on by the government in 1940. Some scientists were against
the control of research, while others insisted that even pure science which had no
wartime application should not be exempt from government control.
The order of mobilization was abolished with the defeat of the Second World War.
Nothing was produced by the mobilization of science comparable with the atomic
bomb, radar, rockets, operations research, etc., which were achieved by the
mobilization of science in the allied nations. However, the Japan programme exerted a
great influence upon the post-war order of research.
5. The eomla~, of age of Japanese seieace

In pioneering research on nuclear physics the Institute of Physical and Chemical
Research exhibited flexibility at its best Nishina Yoshio, pioneer in the field, studied in
Europe for seven years; he studied first under Rutherford, and then moved to
G6ttingen. Finally, from 1923 he spent five years during the period of emergence of
quantum mechanics under Niels Bohr in Copenhagen. There his research led to an
excellent achievement, the Klein-Nishina formula. On coming home, however, he
found that no Japanese university would give him a post as a physicist, simply because
he had graduated in electrical engineering. It was the Institute of Physical and
Chemical Research that appointed him chief-researcher in 1931.
Next year he began to do research on the atomic nucleus and cosmic rays for the
first time in Japan. Since the year 1932 was the beginning of research in nuclear physics
around the world, Japan joined it without delay. Nishina created a laboratory with a
free atmosphere like that of Bohr's Institute in Copenhagen, so it attracted many
brilliant young men. He also invited Heisenberg and Dirac.
He had no sooner completed a cyclotron with a 28-ton magnet, Japan's first
cyclotron, in 1937, than he planned to construct another one, a cyclotron with a 210-
ton magnet. Construction of cyclotrons in rapid succession continued just as in the
United States. Indeed a few people of the research group visited Berkeley to get
courteous advice from Lawrence. The large-scale cyclotron, completed in 1944 only
after strenuous efforts during the wartime shortage of resources, together with the small
cyclotron, met the adverse fate of being destroyed and then thrown away into Tokyo
Bay by the American occupation troops after the war.
4s Tairilm Kaoalmin Yoran ( The Catalogue of the Institute of Scientific Research, Manchukuo)(Hsin-king:
Tairiku Kagakuin, 1938).
90 Eikoh Shimao
Nishina, who had seen the formation of quantum mechanics on the spot in
Copenhagen, delivered ten days' lectures on quantum mechanics at Kyoto University
in 1931, which greatly stimulated yound men such as Yukawa, Tomonaga, and
Taketani among the audience. Nishina's experience in Copenhagen and this fortuitous
encounter with Yukawa and Tomonaga produced a new generation of theoretical
physicists in Japan. It reminds us of Lord Kelvin's, lectures at Johns Hopkins in 1884,
which stimulated American physics circles, and influenced Michelson who was in the
audience to make his famous experiments.
In 1934, only three years after Nishina's lecture, Yukawa Hideki postulated a
particle with a mass roughly 200 times that of the electron in order to explain the strong
forces binding the nucleus by exchanging the particle between protons and neutrons.
Since it was a bald prediction of an unknown particle confronting positivism, it was
received with indifference in the physics circles of the world.
When Bohr, dean of nucleus physics in the world, visited Japan in 1937, Yukawa
introduced his theory to him. Bohr, who disliked the introduction of a hypothetical
particle, did not take him seriously. However, before Bohr returned to Denmark, C. D.
Anderson in the United States detected a new particle in cosmic rays, which seemed
compatible with the particle predicted by Yukawa, He named it meson. Then Yukawa
immediately pubfished a short note mentioning that it corresponded to his particle.
Yukawa's theory moved into the limelight at one leap. He was invited to attend the
Eighth Solvay Congress in 1939, the theme of which was to be the interaction of
elementary particles. He was the first Japanese ever invited to the Congress; Japanese
science had never before received such esteem. Unfortunately the Congress did not take
place because the Second World War broke out in September.
Eventually in 1947 two kinds of meson with different masses were detected in
cosmic rays, and it was found that the /t-meson, the light one, corresponded to
Anderson's and the x-meson, the heavy one, with Yukawa's particle.
Since the Meiji Period the Japanese devoted themselves to importing Western
science, and it was believed that one could not be a first-class scientist without studying
in Western countries. Then Yukawa completed his theory without studying abroad; it
was on invitation from the Solvay Congress that he went abroad for the first time.
Japanese science did not come of age until Yukawa's theory reached the world.
Because nuclear physics was not yet an established field, the Japanese for the first
time joined the world-wide research field forum without delay. Moreover, the research
had been sufficiently subsidized in wartime, and a free atmosphere was formed in
Nishina's laboratory. All of these supported Yukawa's success, not to mention his
personal experience and ability.
American science was similar to Japanese science in being backward in basic
science, but it was always several steps ahead of the latter. However, although excellent
experimental scientists such as Michelson, Millikan, and Lawrence came forward in
succession, no theoretical scientist of Yukawa's stature appeared there before the
Second World War.
It is well known that Heisenberg read Plato, particularly Timaeus, with pleasure
throughout his life, and found this a source of ideas for physics. Similarly Yukawa
flirted with fables and dialogues in the Book of Chuanotse in his speculations on
theoretical physics.
Yukawa had a family background in Chinese studies, so he studied Chinese classics
as a small boy, just as Heisenberg, whose father was a professor of Greek at Munich
University, found Plato.
Modem science is by pedigree related to Greek philosophy and the reflections on

nature. As Sehr6dinger wrote, where there was no influence from Greek thought,
science underwent no development. However, Greek philosophy is not the only system
of ideas that can serve as a basis for science. Yukawa found that the natural philosophy
of Chinese antiquity could serve as a basis for science as well. Here we are reminded that
Bohr chose the Chinese symbol for Yin and Yang for his coat-of-arms to indicate
complementarity.
It seems that Yukawa in his later years speculated on elementary particles by
resonating fascinating ideas from the Book of Chuanotse. He created the expression of
an 'invisible mould' in order to think over the generation and destruction of various
elementary particles, only to find in the Book ofChuangtse a corresponding phrase, 'to
render the universe a big crucible, and nature a great caster'. (Chapter Six, 'The Adept',
Book of Chuangtse.) 49
He found his standpoint of grasping elementary particles by intuition, beyond

positivism and mathematical formalism, was represented most fittingly by the famous
dialogue on a bridge between Chuangtse and Huitse---logician and statesman and a
friendly rival--on 'knowing a fish's enjoyment'. (Chapter Seventeen, 'The Autumn
Flood', Book of Chuangtse.) 5~ The dialogue reads as follows.
One day Chuangtse and Huitse were strolling beside a river. They were crossing a
bridge when Chuangtse said, 'Fishes are swimming at their leisure. How fishes
enjoy themselves!" Immediately Huitse, who was fond of arguing, countered with
this, 'You are not a fish. How can you tell what a fish enjoys?' 'You are not me,'
said Chuangtse, 'How do you know that I can't tell what a fish enjoysT 'I am not
you,' said Huitse, 'so of course I cannot tell about you. In the same way, you are
not a fish. So you cannot tell a fish's feelings. Well--is my logic not
unanswerable?" 'Wait, let us go back to the root of the argument,' said Chuangtse.
'When you asked me how I knew what a fish enjoyed, you admitted that you
knew already whether I knew or not. I knew on the bridge, that the fishes were
enjoying themselves.'
Here Yukawa saw an indirect comment on the question of rationalism and empiricism
in science. He found himself more in sympathy with what Chuangtse wanted to imply.
A deep perception of the natural world, the fish's enjoyment, is to be grasped beyond
something weil-defmed and verifiable in the argument.
Acknowledgments
I should like to acknowledge the assistance of the staff of the Doshisha University
Library, Kansai University Library, Osaka Prefectural Nakanoshima Library, and the
National Diet Library for their efforts to procure essential works for me. I am indebted
to Professor Philip Williams of Doshisha University for linguistic advice.
,9 HidekiYukawa,'Hundred Yearsof Sciencein Japan--From a Physicist'sPoint of View',The XIVth

International Congress of History of Science,Tokyo and Kyoto, 1974;Hideki Yukawa, Scientific Works
(Tokyo:Iwanami Shoten, 1979),456--65.
soExperimentalEssayson Chuangtse,editedby VictorH. Mair (Honolulu:Universityof Hawaii Press,
1983),Hideki Yukawa,'The Happy Fish,' 56-62.

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Some aspects of Japanese science,

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Some Aspects of Japanese Science, 1868-1945t

Received 7 June 1988

1. Significance of Chinese studies for the rec~tion of Western science

1R. P. Dore, Educationin TokuoawaJapan (London, 1965),p. 291.

0003-3790/89$3"009 1989Taylor& FrancisLtd.

Westerners, mostly missionaries, dictated translations to Chinese who gave them a

of the nineteenth century, observed: 'The Chinese language presented no serious

2. The Imperial College of Engineerimg meddled on the

s Eikoh Shimao,'Scientificand TechnicalTerms in Chinese;their Exchangeand Comparisonbetween

14Kyu Kobu-Daioakko Shiryo, pp. 133, 179.

spinning and weaving, telegraphy, architecture, mining, lighthouses, chemistry,

3. Scientific research at a distance

volcanoes, and seismology. He was an important member of the Earthquake Research

realism. Breaking through conventionalism, it attempts to describe nature as it is. He

physicist to treat Lucretius seriously. Summing up, he wrote as follows:

4. The growth of science in a militaristic age

Moreover, unlike government research institutes in the homeland, which belonged

which was not so easily feasible in the homeland.

5. The eomla~, of age of Japanese seieace

Modem science is by pedigree related to Greek philosophy and the reflections on

He found his standpoint of grasping elementary particles by intuition, beyond

,9 HidekiYukawa,'Hundred Yearsof Sciencein Japan--From a Physicist'sPoint of View',The XIVth

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