KAEMPFER, ENGELBERT

(1651–1716)

Born in Lemgo (Lippe, Germany), Kaempfer studied political science in Danzig (now Gdansk, Poland), graduating in 1673; he later studied medicine at Leiden University (degree in 1693–1694). Meanwhile he had also studied in Uppsala, Sweden, where he was invited to serve as the sec retary of an embassy sent in 1683 by King Charles VI to Moscow and Isfahan, Persia. Later, in 1685, he joined the Dutch East India Com pany as a ship’s doctor. In 1690, he visited Siam and Japan. In 1694, he returned to Lemgo as physician to Count Friedrich Adolf zu Lippe. During his voyages, Kaempfer made extensive notes and sketches (e.g., of Persian Persepolis), but during his lifetime only the Amoenitatum exoticarum politico-physico-medicarum fasciculi V was published (1712). After his death, his papers were bought by Hans Sloane (they are now in the British Library); his famous His tory of Japan was published in 1727. The importance of Kaempfer’s observations lies especially in the fields of medicine, botany, ethnog raphy, and history.