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Matsumoto Jun (physician)
Encyclopedia
(July 13, 1832 – March 12, 1907) was a Japan
ese physician
who served as the personal physician to the last Shogun
, Tokugawa Yoshinobu
. He also studied photography with J. L. C. Pompe van Meerdervoort
(1829–1908), though he was somewhat unimpressed with his instructor's skills, once describing the result of one of Pompe van Meerdervoort's photographic experiments as "a meagre black shadow". Foreign Minister Hayashi Tadasu
was his brother.
, at the clan's Azabu
residence in Edo
. He was sent to Nagasaki
in 1857 to study rangaku
, during which time he studied both western medicine and photography. When Swiss
photographer Pierre Rossier
arrived in Japan in 1859, Matsumoto ordered Maeda Genzō
to assist Rossier. Maeda subsequently became a pioneering Japanese photographer. Another link between Matsumoto and photography dates from some point between 1857 and 1859 when he adopted the 13-year-old future photographer Uchida Kuichi
.
Matsumoto helped the Aizu Domain modernize its medical practices, and in 1868 moved to Kyoto
to assist Aizu daimyo
Matsudaira Katamori
during the latter's tenure as Kyoto Shugoshoku
. The situation in Kyoto was very unsettled, and Matsumoto befriended Shinsengumi
leader Kondo Isami
and rendered medical assistance to them. During the Second Chōshū expedition
of 1866, he served as personal physician to the 14th Shogun
, Tokugawa Iemochi
.
During the Boshin War
of the Meiji Restoration
, he volunteered his services as an army medic accompanying the infantry supporting the Shogunate. After the Battle of Aizu
in 1868, he made his way to Sendai, and enlisted with the Ōuetsu Reppan Dōmei
. Briefly imprisoned after the war by the new Meiji government, he was released through the efforts of Yamagata Aritomo
, who asked him to help develop the medical corps of the fledgling Imperial Japanese Army
.
During the Meiji era, he maintained his relations with former retainers of the Shogun. He also was instrumental in helping Nagakura Shinpachi
and Saitō Hajime
build a monument to the Shinsengumi
at Itabashi in Tokyo. He subsequently served in the House of Peers
and received the title of baron
(danshaku) under the Kazoku
peerage system. Matsumoto died in 1907, and his grave is at the temple of Myodai-ji in Oiso, Kanagawa
.
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese physician
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
who served as the personal physician to the last Shogun
Shogun
A was one of the hereditary military dictators of Japan from 1192 to 1867. In this period, the shoguns, or their shikken regents , were the de facto rulers of Japan though they were nominally appointed by the emperor...
, Tokugawa Yoshinobu
Tokugawa Yoshinobu
was the 15th and last shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan. He was part of a movement which aimed to reform the aging shogunate, but was ultimately unsuccessful...
. He also studied photography with J. L. C. Pompe van Meerdervoort
J. L. C. Pompe van Meerdervoort
Johannes Lijdius Catharinus Pompe van Meerdervoort was a Dutch physician based in Nagasaki, Japan...
(1829–1908), though he was somewhat unimpressed with his instructor's skills, once describing the result of one of Pompe van Meerdervoort's photographic experiments as "a meagre black shadow". Foreign Minister Hayashi Tadasu
Hayashi Tadasu
was a career diplomat and cabinet minister in Meiji period Japan. Baron Matsumoto Ryōjun, the onetime private physician to Tokugawa Yoshinobu and founder of the Imperial Japanese Army Medical Corps, was Hayashi’s brother.- Early life :...
was his brother.
Biography
Matsumoto was born as the son of the domain physician of Sakura DomainSakura Domain
was a Japanese domain of the Edo period, located in Shimōsa Province , Japan. It was centered on Sakura Castle in what is now part of the city of Sakura...
, at the clan's Azabu
Azabu
is an area within Minato in Tokyo, Japan, built on a marshy area of foothills south of central Tokyo. Its coverage roughly corresponds to that of the former Azabu Ward, presently consisting of nine official districts: Azabu-Jūban, Azabudai, Azabu-Nagasakachō, Azabu-Mamianachō, Nishi-Azabu,...
residence in Edo
Edo
, also romanized as Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of the Japanese capital Tokyo, and was the seat of power for the Tokugawa shogunate which ruled Japan from 1603 to 1868...
. He was sent to Nagasaki
Nagasaki
is the capital and the largest city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. Nagasaki was founded by the Portuguese in the second half of the 16th century on the site of a small fishing village, formerly part of Nishisonogi District...
in 1857 to study rangaku
Rangaku
Rangaku is a body of knowledge developed by Japan through its contacts with the Dutch enclave of Dejima, which allowed Japan to keep abreast of Western technology and medicine in the period when the country was closed to foreigners, 1641–1853, because of the Tokugawa shogunate’s policy of national...
, during which time he studied both western medicine and photography. When Swiss
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
photographer Pierre Rossier
Pierre Rossier
Pierre Joseph Rossier was a pioneering Swiss photographer whose albumen photographs, which include stereographs and cartes-de-visite, comprise portraits, cityscapes, and landscapes...
arrived in Japan in 1859, Matsumoto ordered Maeda Genzō
Maeda Genzo
Maeda Genzō was a Japanese photographer from northern Kyūshū. In Nagasaki he studied photography under Jan Karel van den Broek and J. L. C. Pompe van Meerdervoort. Neither of these teachers was an experienced photographer, and their attempts to produce photographs were largely failures...
to assist Rossier. Maeda subsequently became a pioneering Japanese photographer. Another link between Matsumoto and photography dates from some point between 1857 and 1859 when he adopted the 13-year-old future photographer Uchida Kuichi
Uchida Kuichi
was a pioneering Japanese photographer from Nagasaki. He was greatly respected as a portrait photographer and was the only photographer granted a sitting to photograph the Emperor Meiji....
.
Matsumoto helped the Aizu Domain modernize its medical practices, and in 1868 moved to Kyoto
Kyoto
is a city in the central part of the island of Honshū, Japan. It has a population close to 1.5 million. Formerly the imperial capital of Japan, it is now the capital of Kyoto Prefecture, as well as a major part of the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto metropolitan area.-History:...
to assist Aizu daimyo
Daimyo
is a generic term referring to the powerful territorial lords in pre-modern Japan who ruled most of the country from their vast, hereditary land holdings...
Matsudaira Katamori
Matsudaira Katamori
was a samurai who lived in the last days of the Edo period and the early to mid Meiji period. He was the 9th daimyo of the Aizu han and the Military Commissioner of Kyoto during the Bakumatsu period. During the Boshin War, Katamori and the Aizu han fought against the Meiji Government armies, but...
during the latter's tenure as Kyoto Shugoshoku
Kyoto Shugoshoku
The ' was a Japanese bureaucratic office of the Tokugawa shogunate from 1862 through 1868. The officeholder was responsible for keeping the peace in the city of Kyoto and its environs, and in this role, largely supplanted the extant office of Kyoto Shoshidai, though the two offices existed side by...
. The situation in Kyoto was very unsettled, and Matsumoto befriended Shinsengumi
Shinsengumi
The were a special police force of the late shogunate period.-Historical background:After Japan opened up to the West following U.S. Commodore Matthew Perry's visits in 1853, its political situation gradually became more and more chaotic...
leader Kondo Isami
Kondo Isami
was a Japanese swordsman and official of the late Edo Period, famed for his role as commander of the Shinsengumi.-Background:Isami, who was first known as Katsugorō, was born to Miyagawa Hisajirō, a farmer residing in Kami-Ishihara village in Musashi Province, now in the city of Chōfu in Western...
and rendered medical assistance to them. During the Second Chōshū expedition
Second Chōshū expedition
The Second Chōshū expedition , also called the Summer War, was a punitive expedition led by the Tokugawa Shogunate against the Chōshū Domain. It followed the First Chōshū expedition of 1864....
of 1866, he served as personal physician to the 14th Shogun
Tokugawa shogunate
The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the and the , was a feudal regime of Japan established by Tokugawa Ieyasu and ruled by the shoguns of the Tokugawa family. This period is known as the Edo period and gets its name from the capital city, Edo, which is now called Tokyo, after the name was...
, Tokugawa Iemochi
Tokugawa Iemochi
was the 14th shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan, who held office 1858 to 1866. During his reign there was much internal turmoil as a result of Japan's first major contact with the United States, which occurred under Commodore Perry in 1853 and 1854, and of the subsequent "re-opening" of...
.
During the Boshin War
Boshin War
The was a civil war in Japan, fought from 1868 to 1869 between forces of the ruling Tokugawa shogunate and those seeking to return political power to the imperial court....
of the Meiji Restoration
Meiji Restoration
The , also known as the Meiji Ishin, Revolution, Reform or Renewal, was a chain of events that restored imperial rule to Japan in 1868...
, he volunteered his services as an army medic accompanying the infantry supporting the Shogunate. After the Battle of Aizu
Battle of Aizu
The Battle of Aizu was fought in northern Japan in autumn 1868, and was part of the Boshin War.Aizu was known for its martial skill, and maintained at any given time, a standing army of over 5000. It was often deployed to security operations on the northern fringes of the country, as far north as...
in 1868, he made his way to Sendai, and enlisted with the Ōuetsu Reppan Dōmei
Ouetsu Reppan Domei
-External links:**...
. Briefly imprisoned after the war by the new Meiji government, he was released through the efforts of Yamagata Aritomo
Yamagata Aritomo
Field Marshal Prince , also known as Yamagata Kyōsuke, was a field marshal in the Imperial Japanese Army and twice Prime Minister of Japan. He is considered one of the architects of the military and political foundations of early modern Japan. Yamagata Aritomo can be seen as the father of Japanese...
, who asked him to help develop the medical corps of the fledgling Imperial Japanese Army
Imperial Japanese Army
-Foundation:During the Meiji Restoration, the military forces loyal to the Emperor were samurai drawn primarily from the loyalist feudal domains of Satsuma and Chōshū...
.
During the Meiji era, he maintained his relations with former retainers of the Shogun. He also was instrumental in helping Nagakura Shinpachi
Nagakura Shinpachi
was the captain of the 2nd troop of the Shinsengumi.-Background:Nagakura Shinpachi Noriyuki, known as Eikichi or Eiji during his childhood, was born in the Matsumae clan's "kami-yashiki" in Edo on the 11th day of the fourth month of Tenpō 10 His father, Nagakura Kanji, was a retainer of the...
and Saitō Hajime
Saito Hajime
was a Japanese samurai of the late Edo period, who most famously served as the captain of the third unit of the Shinsengumi. He was one of the few core members who survived the numerous wars of the Bakumatsu period.-Early years:...
build a monument to the Shinsengumi
Shinsengumi
The were a special police force of the late shogunate period.-Historical background:After Japan opened up to the West following U.S. Commodore Matthew Perry's visits in 1853, its political situation gradually became more and more chaotic...
at Itabashi in Tokyo. He subsequently served in the House of Peers
House of Peers (Japan)
The ' was the upper house of the Imperial Diet as mandated under the Constitution of the Empire of Japan ....
and received the title of baron
Baron
Baron is a title of nobility. The word baron comes from Old French baron, itself from Old High German and Latin baro meaning " man, warrior"; it merged with cognate Old English beorn meaning "nobleman"...
(danshaku) under the Kazoku
Kazoku
The was the hereditary peerage of the Empire of Japan that existed between 1869 and 1947.-Origins:Following the Meiji Restoration of 1868, the ancient court nobility of Kyoto regained some of its lost status...
peerage system. Matsumoto died in 1907, and his grave is at the temple of Myodai-ji in Oiso, Kanagawa
Oiso, Kanagawa
is a town located in Naka District, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. As of 2010, the town had an estimated population of 32,725 and a density of 1,910 persons per km². The total area was 17.18 km².-Geography:...
.