[A historical study on the introduction and development of anatomy in Japan]

Japan received the Western medicine through Portuguese, Spanish and Netherlanders. Especially Netherlanders established House of Trade in Nagasaki, where doctors from their homeland stayed for several years for the health care of their tradesmen, and taught Japanese Western medicine (mainly surgery). By them Anatomy books written in western languages were introduced into Japan and some Japanese had the eager to identify the real structures of human body. At last Yamawaki Toyo became the first dissector of human body in Japan (1754) and he made his own dissection records. In 1774 Sukita Kenpaku translated the Anatomy book of Kulmus into the classic Chinese. From that time on Japanese translated a lot of Anatomy books in western languages and they themselves wrote Anatomy books of their own.