ABSTRACT
Having traced the rise of Dutch learning from its inception among the interpreters at Nagasaki, through the intellectual ferment of the Genroku and Shotoku Periods, and into its next stage of Bakufu sponsorship under Shogun Yoshimune, chronologically the middle of the eighteenth century has been reached. This chapter and the next will attempt to reflect something of the remarkable progress of Western-influenced techniques and technology in the latter half of the eighteenth century. During this period two principal lines of development can be discerned: medicine-botany and astronomy-calendrical science. Some mention has already been made of the interpreter-inspired medical advances such as the Kasuparu-ryu, Nishi-ryu and Yoshio-ryu. However, these were predominantly local Nagasaki schools of medical technique, and it was not until the study of European medicine at Edo that serious scholarly interest in Western scientific methods was assured.
