A Dutch Anatomy Lesson In Japan Summary

The section of Sugita Gempaku’s memoir, “A Dutch Anatomy Lesson in Japan, 1771” is a description of the advancements in modernizing medicine across different cultures. Sugita Gempaku was a Japanese physician found a Dutch anatomy book, allowing him to better understand the human body and take into account of all of the errors in the Eastern culture’s medical books. Gempaku probably wrote this as a remembrance of his accomplishments in life, whether he intended anyone else to read it can be put up to debate. His memoir allows us to understand the difference in Eastern to Western culture, evaluate the medical differences and why they exist, and understand the culture of Japan in this time period. Eastern culture of the most part had isolated itself from the rest of the world and proved itself
The man Gempaku was watching being dissected was a criminal that was murdered for his crimes, a dissection was being done for physician practice. The main capital Tokyo, was referred to as ‘Edo’. Dutch books where almost impossible to come by suggesting that trade with Europe was kept to a minimum. Japan was also still in its class system, this is seen when Sugita Gempaku describes the man that is performing the dissection saying that he belongs to the class that deals with the dead. Also the Japanese people take great pride in their work, Gempaku mentions how ashamed and ignorant he felt after learnings all that he knew was wrong. Overall the Japanese people were slowly transitioning to a more modern outlook on culture.
Sugita Gempaku’s memoir allows us to see a picture of what Eastern cultures medicine and Japanese outlook really looked like. There is a clear line between understanding and simply naming a body part. The author saw his world as something that he needed to contribute to in order to be successful, the needing note leads you to believe that there is change in the