Carl Peter Thunberg, also known as Karl Peter von Thunberg, Carl Pehr Thunberg, or Carl Per Thunberg (11 November 1743 – 8 August 1828), was a
Swedish naturalist and an
"apostle" of Carl Linnaeus. After studying under Linnaeus at Uppsala University, he spent seven years travelling in southern Africa and Asia, collecting and describing many plants and animals new to European science, and observing local cultures. He has been called "the father of South African
botany
Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek w ...
", "pioneer of Occidental Medicine in Japan", and the "Japanese
Linnaeus".
Early life
Thunberg was born and grew up in
Jönköping
Jönköping (, ) is a city in southern Sweden with 112,766 inhabitants (2022). Jönköping is situated on the southern shore of Sweden's second largest lake, Vättern, in the province of Småland.
The city is the seat of Jönköping Municipa ...
, Sweden. At the age of 18, he entered
Uppsala University where he was taught by
Carl Linnaeus
Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, ...
, regarded as the "father of modern
taxonomy". Thunberg graduated in 1767 after 6 years of studying. To deepen his knowledge in botany, medicine and natural history, he was encouraged by Linnaeus in 1770 to travel to Paris and Amsterdam. In Amsterdam and Leiden Thunberg met the Dutch botanist and physician
Johannes Burman and his son
Nicolaas Burman, who himself had been a disciple of Linnaeus.
Having heard of Thunberg's inquisitive mind, his skills in botany and medicine and Linnaeus' high esteem of his Swedish pupil, Johannes Burman and
Laurens Theodorus Gronovius, a councillor of Leiden, convinced Thunberg to travel to either the West or the East Indies to collect plant and animal specimens for the
botanic garden at Leiden, which was lacking exotic exhibits. Thunberg was eager to travel to the
Cape of Good Hope and apply his knowledge.
With the help of Burman and Gronovius, Thunberg entered the
Dutch East India Company
The United East India Company ( nl, Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the VOC) was a chartered company established on the 20th March 1602 by the States General of the Netherlands amalgamating existing companies into the first joint-stock ...
(
Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie
The United East India Company ( nl, Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the VOC) was a chartered company established on the 20th March 1602 by the States General of the Netherlands amalgamating existing companies into the first joint-stock co ...
, V.O.C.) as a surgeon on board the ''Schoonzicht''. As the East Indies were under Dutch control, the only way to enter the colonies was via the V.O.C. Hence, Thunberg embarked in December 1771. In March 1772, he reached
Cape Town
Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest ...
in now South Africa.
South Africa
During his three-year stay, Thunberg perfected his Dutch and studied the culture of the
Khoikhoi, (known to the Dutch as "Hottentotten"), the native people of western South Africa. The Khoikhoi were the first non-European culture he encountered. Their customs and traditions elicited both his disgust and admiration. For example, he considered their custom to grease their skin with fat and dust as an obnoxious habit about which he wrote in his travelogue: "For uncleanliness, the Hottentots have the greatest love. They grease their entire body with greasy substances and above this, they put cow dung, fat or something similar."
[Thunberg 1986, p. 180] Yet, this harsh judgement is moderated by the reason he saw for this practice and so he continues that: "This stops up their pores and their skin is covered with a thick layer which protects it from heat in Summer and from cold during Winter."
This attitude – to try to justify rituals he did not understand – also marked his encounters with Japanese people.
Since the main purpose for his journey was to collect specimens for the gardens in Leiden, Thunberg regularly took field trips into the interior of South Africa. Between September 1772 and January 1773, he accompanied the Dutch superintendent of the V.O.C. garden, Johan Andreas Auge. Their journey took them to the north of
Saldanha Bay, east along the
Breede Valley through the
Langkloof
The Langkloof is a 160 km long valley in South Africa, lying between Herold, a small village northeast of George, and The Heights - just beyond Twee Riviere.
History
The kloof was given its name by Isaq Schrijver in 1689, and more thoroug ...
as far as the
Gamtoos River
Gamtoos River or Gamptoos River is a river in the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. It is formed by the confluence of the Kouga River and the Groot River and is approximately long
with a catchment area of .
Course
The Gamtoos river system ...
and returning by way of the
Little Karoo
The Karoo ( ; from the Afrikaans borrowing of the South Khoekhoe !Orakobab or Khoemana word ''ǃ’Aukarob'' "Hardveld") is a semi-desert natural region of South Africa. No exact definition of what constitutes the Karoo is available, so its ext ...
. During this expedition and later, Thunberg kept in regular contact with scholars in Europe, especially the Netherlands and Sweden, but also with other members of the V.O.C. who sent him animal skins. Shortly after returning, Thunberg met
Francis Masson, a Scots gardener who had come to Cape Town to collect plants for the
Royal Gardens at Kew. They were drawn together by their shared interests. During one of their trips, they were joined by
Robert Jacob Gordon, on leave from his regiment in the Netherlands. Together, the scientists undertook two further inland expeditions.
During his three expeditions into the interior, Thunberg collected many specimens of both flora and fauna. At the initiative of Linnaeus, he graduated at Uppsala as Doctor of Medicine in absentia while he was at the Cape in 1772. Thunberg left the Cape for
Batavia on 2 March 1775. He arrived in Batavia on 18 May 1775, and left for Japan on 20 June.
Japan
In August 1775, he arrived at the Dutch
factory
A factory, manufacturing plant or a production plant is an industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture items or operate machines which process each item into another. ...
of the V.O.C. at
Dejima, a small
artificial island (120 m by 75 m) in the Bay of
Nagasaki
is the capital and the largest city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan.
It became the sole port used for trade with the Portuguese and Dutch during the 16th through 19th centuries. The Hidden Christian Sites in the ...
connected to the city by a single small bridge. However, like the Dutch merchants, Thunberg was at first rarely allowed to leave the island. These restrictions had been imposed by the Japanese ''shogun''
Tokugawa Ieyasu
was the founder and first ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan, which ruled Japan from 1603 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. He was one of the three "Great Unifiers" of Japan, along with his former lord Oda Nobunaga and fello ...
in 1639 after the Portuguese, who had been the first Europeans to arrive in Japan in 1543, persisted in missionary activity. The only locals who were allowed regular contact with the Dutch were the interpreters of Nagasaki and the relevant authorities of the city.
Shortly after the ''Schoonzicht's'' arrival on Deshima, Thunberg was appointed head surgeon of the trading post. To still be able to collect specimens of Japanese plants and animals as well as to gather information on the population, Thunberg began to construct networks with the interpreters by sending them small notes containing medical knowledge and receiving botanical knowledge or rare Japanese coins in return. Quickly, the news spread that a well-educated Dutch physician was in town who seemed to be able to help the local doctors cure
syphilis
Syphilis () is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the bacterium '' Treponema pallidum'' subspecies ''pallidum''. The signs and symptoms of syphilis vary depending in which of the four stages it presents (primary, secondary, latent, a ...
, known in Japan as the "Dutch disease". As a result, the appropriate authorities granted him more visits to the city and finally even allowed him one-day trips into the vicinity of Nagasaki, where Thunberg had the chance to collect specimens by himself.
During his visits in town, Thunberg began to recruit students, mainly the Nagasaki interpreters and local physicians. He taught them new medical treatments, such as using mercury to treat syphilis, and the production of new medicines. During this process, he also instructed his pupils in the Dutch language and European manners, furthering the growing interest into Dutch and European culture by the Japanese, known as ''
rangaku''. Thunberg had brought some seeds of European vegetables with him and showed the Japanese some botanical practices, expanding Japanese horticultural practices.
Thunberg also profited from his teachings himself. As a former medical student he was mainly interested in medical knowledge, and the Japanese showed him the practice of
acupuncture. The exchange of ideas between Thunberg and the local physicians led to the development of a new acupuncture point called ''
shakutaku''. The discovery of ''shakutaku'' was a result of Thunberg's anatomic knowledge and the Japanese traditional medicine of neuronic
moxibustion. Thunberg brought back knowledge on Japan's religion and societal structure, boosting interest into Japan, an early cultural form of
Japonism
''Japonisme'' is a French term that refers to the popularity and influence of Japanese art and design among a number of Western European artists in the nineteenth century following the forced reopening of foreign trade with Japan in 1858. Japon ...
.
In both countries, Thunberg's knowledge exchange led to a cultural opening-up, which also manifested itself in the spread of universities and boarding schools which taught knowledge of the other culture. For this reason, Thunberg has been called "the most important eye witness of
Tokugawa Japan
The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional ''daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characterize ...
in the eighteenth century".
Due to his scientific reputation, Thunberg was given the opportunity in 1776 to accompany the Dutch ambassador M. Feith to the shogun's court in
Edo
Edo ( ja, , , "bay-entrance" or "estuary"), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo.
Edo, formerly a ''jōkamachi'' (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the ''de facto'' capital of ...
, today's Tokyo. During that journey, he collected many specimens of plants and animals and talked to locals along the way. It is during this time that Thunberg started writing two of his scientific works, the ''Flora Japonica'' (1784) and the ''
Fauna Japonica
''Fauna Japonica'' is a series of monographs on the zoology of Japan. It was the first book written in a European language ( French) on the Japanese fauna, and published serially in five volumes between 1833 and 1850.
The full title is .
Based ...
'' (1833). The latter was completed by the German traveller
Philipp Franz von Siebold
Philipp Franz Balthasar von Siebold (17 February 1796 – 18 October 1866) was a German physician, botanist and traveler. He achieved prominence by his studies of Japanese flora and fauna and the introduction of Western medicine in Japan. He w ...
, who visited Japan between 1823 and 1829 and based the ''Fauna Japonica'' on Thunberg's notes which he carried with him all the time in Japan.
On his way to Edo, Thunberg also obtained many Japanese coins, which he described in detail in the fourth volume of his travelogue, ''Travels in Europe, Africa and Asia, performed between the Years 1770 and 1779''. The coins provided new insights for European scholars into the culture, religion and history of Japan, as their possession and export by foreigners had been strictly forbidden by the shogun. This prohibition had been imposed to prevent the
Empire of China and other rivals of the shogunate from copying the money and flooding the Japanese markets with forged coins.
In November 1776, after Thunberg had returned from the shogun's court, he left for
Java
Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mo ...
, now part of
Indonesia
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Gui ...
. From there, he travelled to
Ceylon
Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...
(now Sri Lanka) in July 1777. Here again, his major interest lay in collecting plants and other specimens.
In February 1778, Thunberg left Ceylon to return to Europe.
Return to Europe
In 1778, Thunberg left Ceylon for Amsterdam, with a two week stay at the Cape. He finally arrived at Amsterdam in October 1778. He made a short trip to London where he met
Joseph Banks. He saw there the Japanese collection from the 1680s of the German naturalist
Engelbert Kaempfer
Engelbert Kaempfer (16 September 16512 November 1716) was a German naturalist, physician, explorer and writer known for his tour of Russia, Persia, India, Southeast Asia, and Japan between 1683 and 1693.
He wrote two books about his travels. '' ...
(1651–1716), who had preceded him at Dejima. He also met
Forster, who showed him his collections from
Cook
Cook or The Cook may refer to:
Food preparation
* Cooking, the preparation of food
* Cook (domestic worker), a household staff member who prepares food
* Cook (professional), an individual who prepares food for consumption in the food industry
* ...
's second voyage.
On arrival in Sweden in March 1779, he learned of the death of Linnaeus one year earlier. Thunberg was first appointed botanical demonstrator in 1777, and in 1781 professor of medicine and natural philosophy at the University of Uppsala. His publications and specimens resulted in the description of many new taxa.
He published his ''Flora Japonica'' in 1784, and in 1788 he began to publish his travels. He completed his ''Prodromus Plantarum'' in 1800, his ''Icones Plantarum Japonicarum'' in 1805, and his ''Flora Capensis'' in 1813. He published numerous memoirs in the transactions of various Swedish and international scientific societies. He was an honorary member of sixty-six scientific societies. In 1776, while still in Asia, he had been elected a member of the
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. He was elected a member of the
American Philosophical Society
The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...
in 1791. In 1809 he became correspondent, and in 1823 an associate member of the
Royal Institute of the Netherlands.
He died at Thunaberg near
Uppsala
Uppsala (, or all ending in , ; archaically spelled ''Upsala'') is the county seat of Uppsala County and the fourth-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö. It had 177,074 inhabitants in 2019.
Located north of the ca ...
on 8 August 1828.
Reasons for his travels
It was common for
Enlightenment scholars to travel throughout Europe and to more distant regions, and to write subsequent travelogues. However, Thunberg was notable in his travel destination and the popularity of his account of his travels, which was translated into German, English and French. Three main reasons for this have been proposed:
# Besides being encouraged by Linnaeus and Gronovius to travel to Japan, the fact that, for half a century, no new information on the country had reached Europe attracted Thunberg to travel there. In 1690,
Engelbert Kaempfer
Engelbert Kaempfer (16 September 16512 November 1716) was a German naturalist, physician, explorer and writer known for his tour of Russia, Persia, India, Southeast Asia, and Japan between 1683 and 1693.
He wrote two books about his travels. '' ...
, a German traveller, had sailed to Japan and spent two years on the island of Deshima. Kaempfer's 1729 travelogue became a famous work on the shogunate; yet, when Thunberg came to Japan, Kaempfer's writings were already more than fifty years old.
[Jung 2002, pp. 90–92] The time was right for new knowledge.
# The Age of Enlightenment furthered a scientific hunger for new information. In the light of the increasing emphasis on using the rational human mind, many students were keen to leave the boundaries of Europe and apply their knowledge and gather new insights about less well-known regions.
# Thunberg was a very inquisitive and intelligent man, a "person of acute mind"
[Screech, T. (2012). ''Japan Extolled and Decried: Carl Peter Thunberg and the Shogun’s Realm, 1775 – 1776''. Routledge: Taylor and Francis Group, London and New York, p. 2] who sought new challenges. Hence, the journey was in Thunberg's personal interest and complied well with his character.
Namesake plants
A genus of tropical plants, ''
Thunbergia'', family
Acanthaceae, which are cultivated as evergreen climbers, is named after him.
Thunberg is cited in naming some 254 species of both plants and animals (though significantly more plants than animals). Notable examples of plants referencing Thunberg in their
specific epithets include:
*''
Allium thunbergii''
*''
Amaranthus thunbergii
''Amaranthus thunbergii'', commonly known as Thunberg's amaranthus or Thunberg's pigweed, is found in Africa.
The leaves are used as a flavouring or leafy vegetable.Grubben, G.J.H. & Denton, O.A. (2004) Plant Resources of Tropical Africa 2. Vege ...
''
*''
Arisaema thunbergii
''Arisaema thunbergii'', commonly known as Asian jack-in-the-pulpit, is a plant species in the family Araceae. It is found in Japan at elevations of 20–100 meters. The plant is poisonous as all parts contain calcium oxalate
Calcium oxalate ...
''
*''
Berberis thunbergii''
*''
Fritillaria thunbergii''
*''
Geranium thunbergii''
*''
Lespedeza thunbergii''
*''
Pinus thunbergii''
*''
Spiraea thunbergii''
Selected publications
;Botany
*''Flora Japonica'' (1784)
*Edo travel accompaniment.
*''Prodromus Plantarum Capensium'' (Uppsala, vol. 1: 1794, vol. 2: 1800)
[''Prodromus Plantarum Capensium'' at Biodiversity Heritage Library. (see ''External links'' below).]
*''Flora Capensis'' (1807, 1811, 1813, 1818, 1820, 1823)
*''Voyages de C.P. Thunberg au Japon par le Cap de Bonne-Espérance, les Isles de la Sonde'', etc.
*''Icones plantarum japonicarum'' (1805)
;Entomology
*''Donationis Thunbergianae 1785 continuatio I. Museum naturalium Academiae Upsaliensis'', pars III, 33–42 pp. (1787).
*''Dissertatio Entomologica Novas Insectorum species sistens, cujus partem quintam. Publico examini subjicit Johannes Olai Noraeus, Uplandus''. Upsaliae, pp. 85–106, pl. 5. (1789).
*''D. D. Dissertatio entomologica sistens Insecta Suecica. Exam. Jonas Kullberg''. Upsaliae, pp. 99–104 (1794).
See also
*
An'ei
was a after ''Meiwa'' and before ''Tenmei.'' This period spanned the years November 1772 through March 1781. The reigning emperors were and .
Change of era
* 1772 : The era name was changed to ''An'ei'' (meaning "peaceful eternity") to mark t ...
*
Kuze Hirotami
(1737–1800), also known as , was a Japanese politician during late 18th-century '' Nagasaki bugyō'' or governor of Nagasaki port, located on southwestern shore of Kyūshū island in the Japanese archipelago.Screech, Timon. (2006). ''Secret Mem ...
*
Sakoku
was the isolationist foreign policy of the Japanese Tokugawa shogunate under which, for a period of 265 years during the Edo period (from 1603 to 1868), relations and trade between Japan and other countries were severely limited, and nearly a ...
*
List of Westerners who visited Japan before 1868
Notes
References
*
* Jung, C. (2002). ''Kaross und Kimono: „Hottentotten“ und Japaner im Spiegel des Reiseberichts von Carl Peter Thunberg, 1743 – 1828.''
aross and Kimono: “Hottentots” and Japanese in the Mirror of Carl Peter Thunberg's Travelogue, 1743 – 1828 Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart, Germany
*Skuncke, Marie-Christine (2014). ''Carl Peter Thunberg: Botanist and Physician.''Swedish Collegium for Advanced Studies, Uppsala, Sweden
* Thunberg, C. P. (1986). ''Travels at the Cape of Good Hope, 1772–1775 : based on the English edition London, 1793–1795''. (Ed. V. S. Forbes) London
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Thunberg, Carl Peter
18th-century Swedish botanists
18th-century male writers
18th-century non-fiction writers
18th-century Swedish physicians
18th-century Swedish zoologists
1743 births
1828 deaths
Age of Liberty people
Botanical writers
Botanists active in Africa
Botanists active in Japan
Bryologists
Burials at Uppsala old cemetery
Dutch East India Company people
Fellows of the Royal Society
Honorary members of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences
Japanologists
Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences
Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
People from Jönköping
Pteridologists
Swedish entomologists
Swedish expatriates in Japan
Swedish lepidopterists
Swedish male writers
Swedish mycologists
Swedish non-fiction writers
Swedish ornithologists
Swedish phycologists
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Taxon authorities of Hypericum species
Swedish expatriates in the Dutch Republic
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19th-century Swedish botanists