KAEMPFER, ENGELBRECHT (1651-1716)

This article appears in Volume V15, Page 627 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: JUN-KHA

KAEMPFER, ENGELBRECHT (1651-1716) , German traveller and physician, was born on the 16th of November 1651 at Lemgo in Lippe-Detmold, Westphalia, where his father was a pastor. He studied at Hameln, Luneburg, Hamburg, Lubeck and Danzig, and after graduating Ph.D. at Cracow, spent four years at Konigsberg in Prussia, studying medicine and natural science. In 1681 he visited Upsala in Sweden, where he was offered inducements to settle; but his desire for foreign travel led him to become secretary to the embassy which Charles XI. sent through Russia to Persia in 1683. He reached Persia by way of Moscow, Kazan and Astrakhan, landing at Nizabad in Daghestan after a voyage in the Caspian; from Shemakha in

Shirvan

SHIRVAN

he made an expedition to the Baku peninsula, being perhaps the first modern scientist to visit these fields of " eternal fire." In 1684 he arrived in Isfahan, then the Persian

capital

CAPITAL (i.e. capital stock or fund)
CAPITAL (Lat. caput, head)

. When after a stay of more than a year the Swedish embassy prepared to return, Kaempfer joined the

fleet

FLEET

of the Dutch

East

EAST
EAST, ALFRED (1849- )

India Company in the Persian Gulf as

chief

CHIEF (from Fr. chef, head, Lat. caput)

surgeon, and in spite of fever caught at Bander Abbasi he found opportunity to see something of Arabia and of many of the western coast-lands of India. In September 1689 he reached Batavia; spent the following winter in studying Javanese natural history; and in May 1690 set out for Japan as physician to the embassy sent yearly to that country by the Dutch. The ship in which he sailed touched at Siam, whose

capital

CAPITAL (i.e. capital stock or fund)
CAPITAL (Lat. caput, head)

he visited; and in September 1690 he arrived at

Nagasaki

NAGASAKI

, the only Japanese port then open to foreigners. Kaempfer stayed two years in Japan, during which he twice visited

Tokyo

TOKYO (or TOKIO, formerly called Yedo)

. His adroitness, insinuating manners and medical skill overcame the habitual jealousy and reticence of the natives, and enabled him to elicit much valuable information. In November 1692 he left Japan for Java and Europe, and in October 1693 he landed at Amsterdam. Receiving the degree of M.D. at Leiden, he settled down in his native city, becoming also physician to the count of Lippe. He died at Lemgo on the 2nd of November 1716.
The only

work

WORK

Kaempfer lived to publish was Amoenitatum exoticarum politico-physico-medicarum fasciculi V. (Lemgo, 1712), a selection from his papers giving results of his invaluable observations in Georgia, Persia and Japan. At his death the unpublished manuscripts were purchased by Sir Hans Sloane, and conveyed to England. Among them was a History of Japan, translated from the manuscript into English by J. G. Scheuchzer and published at London, in 2 vols., in 1727. The

original

ORIGINAL

German has never been published, the extant German version being taken from the English. Besides Japanese history, this book contains a description of the political, social and physical state of the country in the 17th century. For upwards of a hundred years it remained the

chief

CHIEF (from Fr. chef, head, Lat. caput)

source of information for the general reader, and is still not wholly obsolete. A life of the author is prefixed to the History.

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