Between Two Worlds: Yamanouchi Shigeo and Eugenics in Early Twentieth‐Century Japan

Abstract

This paper explores the eugenic thought of Yamanouchi Shigeo (1876–1973), who was trained in plant cytology under the tutelage of botanist and eugenicist John Coulter (1851–1928) in the USA, and later became one of the early and important popularizers of eugenic ideas in Japan. His career demonstrates a direct link between Japanese and US eugenics. Despite his academic training and research at various internationally renowned institutions, numerous publications, and longevity, his life has received little scholarly attention. By the early twentieth century, most biologists in Japan, as in the USA, began accepting Mendelian evolutionary theory and rejecting the Lamarckian notion of inheritance of acquired characteristics. However, Yamanouchi Shigeo's eugenic view represents a paradox: he was a Mendelian cytologist sympathetic to Lamarckism. Was his ‘nurture’‐oriented eugenic view unscientific? Is that why he was largely ignored in the history of botany in Japan? This study attempts to answer these questions and to analyse the origins and distinct features of Yamanouchi's eugenic ideas by situating Yamanouchi's eugenic thought historically and culturally. After examining his scientific papers, popular writings, and documents of various organizations to which he belonged, I argue that Yamanouchi's ‘softer’ (or less biologically deterministic) perspective may have reflected the Japanese desire to catch up with the dominant ‘race’ by using eugenics without accepting permanent inferior status.

Acknowledgements

I am greatly indebted to the Yamanouchi family, who shared letters, pictures, and other documents of Yamanouchi Shigeo with me. I am grateful to James Bartholomew, Morris Low, Sabine Frühstück, David Wittner, Philip Brown, John C. Burnham, David Hoffman, Lawrence Sitcawich, and two anonymous readers for their constructive suggestions for revisions. During my research and revising, I benefited greatly from the help of Akiho Ryô, Deborah Barrett, Juliette Yuehtsen Chung, Maureen Donovan, Ishizaki Shôko, Bryan LeBeau, Matsubara Yôko, Mizoguchi Hajime, Jean Monahan, Morita Yukio, Moroi Sakiko, Nakajima Kuni, Okamoto Kôichi, Okuizumi Eisaburô, and Mary Smith. This project was funded by the Department of History and the Women's Studies Program at The Ohio State University, Creighton University Graduate School's Summer Faculty Research Fellowship, Northeast Asia Council for the Association for Asian Studies Grant for Short‐Term Research Travel to Japan, as well as the postdoctoral fellowship at the Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies at Harvard University.

Notes

Rather than ‘imitation’ or ‘parasitism’, Joseph J. Tobin consciously uses the concept ‘domestication’ to describe the ‘active’, ‘neutral’, and ‘demystifying’ process of Japanese consumption of Western goods, practices, and ideas. See Tobin, ‘Introduction: Domesticating the West’, in Re‐Made in Japan: Everyday Life and Consumer Taste in a Changing Society, ed. by Tobin (New Haven, CT, 1992), pp. 1–41, (p. 4).

For a brief discussion on a link between US and Japanese eugenics, see Sumiko Otsubo and James R. Bartholomew, ‘Eugenics in Japan: Some Ironies of Modernity, 1883–1945’, Science in Context, 11 (3–4) (1998), 545–65 (p. 560). Compare the paucity of evidence and discussion about links between Japanese and Western eugenics with the situation in China, where direct contact between Western and Chinese eugenic enthusiasts was easily observable. For example, Western eugenic enthusiasts such as A.B. Droogleever Fortuyn (Peking Union Medical College), John Teron Illick (University of Nanking), and George H. Danton (Tsing Hua College, Peking) taught in China in the early twentieth century. Chinese eugenicists Pan Guangdang (English name Quentin Pan) and T. L. Woo were trained at prominent eugenic institutions in the West. While Pan was at Charles Davenport's Eugenics Record Office in Cold Spring Harbor, NY, between 1923 and 1925, Woo studied at Karl Pearson's laboratory in London and Eugen Fischer's in Berlin. See ‘Eugenics in China’, Eugenical News, 3 (1918), 61; ‘Eugenical Studies in China’, Eugenical News, 8 (1923), 43; Quentin Pan, ‘Pan's Plans’, Eugenical News, 9 (1924), 80; ‘Records of Family Traits in Chinese’, Eugenical News, 11 (1926), 16–17; ‘Notes and News’, Eugenical News, 11 (1926), 80; ‘Eugenics and Anthropology in China’, Eugenical News, 11 (1926), 104; A. B. Droogleever Fortuyn, ‘Eugenical Remarks on China’, Eugenical News, 15 (1930), 77–78; ‘Eugenical Work of Dr. T. L. Woo’, Eugenical News, 16 (1931), 125–26.

Studies thus far have tended to focus on socio‐cultural and political aspects (i.e. social and legislative movements and cultural phenomena) of the Japanese eugenic experience. Even studies dealing with scientists and medical experts mainly analyse their popular writings on eugenics without paying adequate attention to their scientific research. For details about the existing literature, see Sumiko Otsubo Sitcawich, ‘Eugenics in Imperial Japan: Some Ironies of Modernity, 1883–1945’ (doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 1998), pp. 10–29. See also note 18 of the present study.

Note on Japanese names: Japanese names are rendered surname first, given name second. In the case of Japanese authors writing in English, the given name precedes the family name. Familiar Japanese place names such as Tokyo and Osaka appear without macrons.

Frank Dikötter, Imperfect Conceptions: Medical Knowledge, Birth Defects, and Eugenics in China (New York, 1998), p. 3. Although the USA plus European and Latin American countries dominated the International Federation of Eugenics Organizations in pre World War II years, Eugenical News informed readers of eugenic activities in such other places as Australia, China, Dutch Indies, India, Japan, New Zealand, and South Africa. See Eugenical News, vols 1–26 (1916–44). Others have also noted politically wide‐ranging eugenic experiences in many different countries. For example, Mark B. Adams has found eugenic movements in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in ‘more than thirty countries’, where patterns of adaptation were remarkably diverse. See Adams, ‘Eugenics in the History of Science’, in The Wellborn Science: Eugenics in Germany, France, Brazil, and Russia, ed. by Adams (New York, 1990), pp. 3–7 (p. 5), and Adams, ‘Toward a Comparative History of Eugenics’, in the same volume, pp. 217–31 (p. 218). For a comparative study that explores the pre‐ and especially post‐1945 patterns of eugenics in the UK, the USA, Germany, Scandinavian countries, France, and Japan, see Yonemoto Shôhei, Matsubara Yôko, Nudeshima Jirô and Ichinokawa Yasutaka, Yûseigaku to ningen shakai: Seimei kagaku no seiki wa doko e mukau no ka (Tokyo, 2000). The editors of the special issue ‘Eugenics Thought and Practice: A Reappraisal’ of Science in Context have extended understanding of the history of eugenic activities by including papers on aspects of Jewish eugenics. See Science in Context, 11 (3–4) (1998).

Mark H. Haller, Eugenics: Hereditarian Attitudes in American Thought (New Brunswick, NJ, 1963), pp. 59–60; Diane B. Paul, Controlling Human Heredity 1865 to the Present (Atlantic Highlands, NJ, 1995), p. 41.

As for the close relationship between Weismann's theory and Mendelism, see Haller (note 3), pp. 61–63, and Hamilton Cravens, The Triumph of Evolution: American Scientists and the Heredity–Environment Controversy 1900–1941 (Philadelphia, PA, 1978), pp. 39–40.

Paul (note 3), p. 41. For more on the soft and hard heredity theories, see Peter J. Bowler, Evolution: The History of an Idea, rev. edn. (Berkeley, CA, 1983), pp. 246–81; Daniel J. Kevles, In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity (New York, 1985), p. 66. As for Japan, see Suzuki Zenji, Nihon no yûseigaku: Sono shisô to undô no kiseki (Tokyo, 1983), p. 71. As for China, see Dikötter (note 2), p. 5.

See Suzuki (note 5), pp. 62–65. For more on the tension in Britain, see Kevles (note 5), pp. 43–44. Suzuki states that eugenics and the notion of the inheritance of acquired characteristics are not compatible. See Suzuki (note 5), p. 77.

Suzuki (note 5), pp. 80, 85–90, and 107. When Suzuki wrote his book, he had little biographical information about Yamanouchi. Thus, it was difficult for Suzuki to contextualize Yamanouchi's ideas.

Takagi Masashi, ‘“Taishô demokurashî”‐ki ni okeru “yûseiron” no tenkai to kyôiku: Kyôiku zasshi no naiyô bunseki no shikaku kara’, Nagoya Daigaku kyôiku gakubu kiyô (Kyôiku Gakka), 36 (1989), 167–77. This is the only study that pays attention to Yamanouchi's dual career as a biologist and educator. However, Takagi did not discuss the relationship between Yamanouchi's theoretical understanding of heredity and his eugenic view.

For example, an authoritative collection of major Japanese biologists' biographies does not include Yamanouchi. See Kindai Nihon seibutsu gakusha shôden, ed. by Kihara Hitoshi, Shinotô Yoshito and Isono Naohide (Tokyo, 1988). This omission was curious since one of the editors of Kindai Nihon seibutsu gakusha shôden, a senior plant geneticist, Shinotô Yoshito, was familiar with Yamanouchi's work, and Yamanouchi was one of the first thirty or so biologists who received a Japanese doctoral degree in science. See Shinotô's discussions of Yamanouchi's research in Shinotô, Nihon saibô gakushi: Shokubutsugaku no bu [Japana historio citologia: Parto botanika] (Tokyo, 1932), pp. 22, 24, 30, 32, 339, 340, 341 and 342. Hayashi Makoto's study on early development of Japanese cytology does not mention Yamanouchi, either. See Hayashi, ‘Cell Theory in its Development and Inheritance in Meiji Japan’, Historia Scientiarium, 8 (2) (1998), 115–32. Little information about Yamanouchi can be found in the Japan Society of Botany's overview of research in the past one hundred years, or in an encyclopedia of Japanese science and technology. See Nihon no shokubutsugaku 100‐nen no ayumi, ed. by Nihon Shokubutsu Gakkai Hyakunenshi Henshû Iinkai (Tokyo, 1982), and Kagakushi gijutsushi jiten, ed. by Itô Shuntarô, Sakamoto Kenzô and Murakami Yôichirô, Shukusatsu edn (Tokyo, 1983). Recently, however, scholars have begun writing about Yamanouchi Shigeo, albeit sparsely. Our discussions about him are still limited to several pages altogether. While phycologists Mitsuo Chihara and John A. West wrote a biography of Yamanouchi as an algologist, historian of science Mizoguchi Hajime collected documents concerning Japanese biologists—including Yamanouchi—who had studied at, or visited, the Naples Zoological Station, held at the NZS archives. The present study details what we, Otsubo and Bartholomew, have discussed briefly in our work published in Science in Context. See Otsubo and Bartholomew (note 1), pp. 552–54; Chihara and West, ‘Shigeo Yamanouchi (1876–1973): A Noted Japanese Phycologist’, Phycological Research, 46 (1998), 81–84. For Mizoguchi's reports on archival records, see Mizoguchi, ‘Japanese Biologists at the Naples Zoological Station, 1887–1956’, Historia Scientiarum, 8 (2) (1998), 99–113 (p. 105); ‘Nihon no kenkyûseki no kakuritsu’, in Napori rinkai jikkenjo: Kyorai shita Nihon no kagakushatachi, ed. by Nakano Eizô, Mizoguchi Hajime, and Yokota Yukio (Tokyo, 1999), pp. 41–52 (p. 45); and ‘Senzen no taizai kenkyûsha’, in the same volume, pp. 53–68 (pp. 57, 66).

For example, botanist Yatabe Ryôkichi (1851–99) graduated from Cornell University in 1876. Before assuming the first professorship of botany at Tokyo University in the following year, he participated in the summer program at Woods Hole, MA. He was later transferred to Tokyo Teacher's College, where Yamanouchi Shigeo studied. Kihara et al. (note 9), pp. 86–93.

Note that the improvement of silkworms and a species of rice were a state priority in Meiji Japan. While silk export earned much needed foreign reserves to propel industrialization, productivity of rice agriculture was crucial in supporting the growing population.

Suzuki (note 5), pp. 56, 67–68.

Ibid. (note 5), pp. 69–84, especially p. 79. See also Shinotô Yoshito, ‘Nihon idengaku no yoake’ in Ômachi Fumie, Okada Kaname and Shinotô Yoshito, Seibutsugaku ôrai (Tokyo, 1978), pp. 145–55. Shinotô originally wrote this essay in 1963. For the international context of this issue, see T. H. Morgan, ‘Are acquired characters inherited?’, Yale Review, 13 (4) (1924), 712–29.

The first course on genetics, however, had already been being taught since 1913 at Tôhoku University, Agricultural College, the predecessor of today's Hokkaido University, Faculty of Agriculture, by Tanaka Yoshimaro. See Shinotô (note 13), p. 150.

Kihara et al. (note 9), pp. 19–20, 216–22.

Suzuki (note 5), pp. 65–69.

See Sumiko Otsubo, ‘Engendering Eugenics: Feminists and Marriage Restriction Legislation in the 1920s’, in Gendering Modern Japanese History, ed. by Barbara Molony and Kathleen Uno (Cambridge, MA, forthcoming).

For readers who do not read Japanese but want to become more familiarized with eugenics and related issues in Japan, the following studies are useful: Zenji Suzuki, ‘Geneticists and Eugenics Movement in Japan and America: A Comparative Study’, in Proceedings of the XIVth International Congress of the History of Science (Tokyo, 1974), III, 68–70; Zenji Suzuki, ‘Geneticists and Eugenics Movement in Japan’, Japanese Studies in the History of Science, 14 (1975), 157–64; Hikaru Saitoh, ‘Studies on the History of Biology in Japan’, Historia Scientiarum, 6 (2) (1996), 109–22; Otsubo and Bartholomew, ‘Eugenics in Japan’ (note 1); Sumiko Otsubo, ‘Feminist Maternal Eugenics in Wartime Japan’, U.S.–Japan Women's Journal, English Supplement, 17 (1999), 39–76; Otsubo, ‘Engendering Eugenics’ (note 17); Otsubo, ‘The Female Body and Eugenic Thought in Meiji Japan’, in Building a Modern Nation: Science, Technology and Medicine in Japan, the Meiji Era and Beyond ed. by Morris Low (New York forthcoming); Yôko Matsubara, ‘The Enactment of Japan's Sterilization Laws in the 1940s: A Prelude to Postwar Eugenic Policy’, Historia Scientiarum, 8 (2) (1998), 1–15; Tessa Morris‐Suzuki, ‘Debating Racial Science in Wartime Japan’, Osiris, 2nd ser. 13 (1998), 354–75; Jennifer Robertson, ‘Sexuality and Shopping: Eugenics and Female Citizenship in Urban Japan, 1920–1940,’ Asiatische Studien, 53 (2) (1999), 383–93; Robertson, ‘Japan's First Cyborg? Miss Nippon, Eugenics and Wartime Technologies of Beauty, Body and Blood’, Body and Society, 7 (1) (2001), 1–34. Parts of the following dissertations deal with aspects of Japanese eugenics: Juliette Yuehtsen Chung, ‘Struggle for National Survival: Chinese Eugenics in a Transnational Context, 1896–1945’, (doctoral dissertation, University of Chicago, 1999) and Yuki Terazawa, ‘Gender, Knowledge, and Power: Reproductive Medicine in Japan, 1690–1930’, (doctoral dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, 2001).

See Jinji kôshinroku ed. by Uchio Naoji, 14th edn (Tokyo, 1943), p. ya‐52, Shônai Jinmei Jiten Kankôkai, Shinpen Shônai jinmei jiten (Tsuruoka, Yamagata, 1986), p. 642, ‘Yamanouchi, Dr. Shigeo’, in American Men of Science: A Bibliographical Directory, 2nd edn (New York, 1910), p. 528, and ‘Yamanouchi, Shigeo’, Journal of the New York Botanical Garden, 12 (June 1911), p. 146. (hereafter cited as JK, SJJ, AMS and JNYBG respectively).

About the history of the Yamanouchi family see ‘Kensha ika shinkan kakeisho, rirekisho tsuzuri’, compiled by Tsuruoka Machiyakuba, handwritten MS (photocopy), Tsuruoka‐shi Kyôdo Shiryôkan, 1892. I am indebted to Akiho Ryô of the Tsuruoka City Archives who brought my attention to locally held Yamanouchi‐related documents.

In this paper, I will use Yamanouchi's own translation of his alma mater ‘Tokyo Teachers' College’ without following the name and structure changes of the college. See SJJ (note 19), p. 642.

See ‘Jinbutsu chôsa hyô: Yamanouchi Shigeo’, handwritten MS (photocopy), ‘“Tsuruoka hyakunen no jinbutsu to jiseki” chôsa hyô tsuzuri’, Tsuruoka Shiritsu Kyôdo Shiryôkan, Tsuruoka.

JNYBG (note 19). See also Yamanouchi Sada, letter from (Tokyo) to the Tsuruoka‐shiritsu Kyôdo Shiryôkan, Yamagata, 1973 (?), attached handwritten MS (photocopy) to the ‘“Tsuruoka hyakunen no jinbutsu to jiseki” chôsa hyô tsuzuri’, Tsuruoka Shiritsu Kyôdo Shiryôkan, Tsuruoka.

For instance, see Marshall A. Howe, ‘The Collections of Algae’, JNYBG (note 19), 9 (July 1908), 123–30.

Shigeo Yamanouchi, ‘The Life History of Polysiphonia Violacea (Preliminary Note)’, Botanical Gazette, 41 (6) (June 1906), 425–33 (p. 425); ‘The Life History of Polysiphonia Violacea’, Botanical Gazette, 42 (6) (December 1906), 401–48 (pp. 402–03); JNYBG (note 19). The Carnegie Institution of Washington granted $10,000 a year for three years beginning 1903. See James D. Ebert, ‘Carnegie Institution of Washington and Marine Biology: Naples, Woods Hole, and Tortugas’, Biological Bulletin, 168 (Supplement) (June 1985), 172–82 (pp. 179–80) An MBL archivist Jean Monahan broke down the grant for me. The Carnegie Institution ‘gave a grant of $4,000.00 for the expenses of the year 1902, and subscribed for twenty investigators' rooms for three years (1903, 1904, 1905) at $500.00 a year each, thus furnishing $10,000.00 a year during this period’… Jean Monahan, ‘Yamanouchi Shigeo’, personal communication, 9 April 1997.

See Philip J. Pauly, ‘Summer Resort and Scientific Discipline: Woods Hole and the Structure of American Biology, 1882–1925’, in The American Development of Biology, ed. by Ronald Rainger, Keith R. Benson and Jane Maienschein (Philadelphia, PA, 1988), pp. 121–50 (p. 123).

About the program in botany and Bradley M. Davis at the MBL, see Frank R. Lillie, The Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory (Chicago, IL, 1944), pp. 144–46. Regarding Davis' relationship with John Merle Coulter, see Andrew Denny Rodgers III, John Merle Coulter: Missionary in Science (Princeton, NJ, 1944), pp. 149–88 passim.

For discussions of academic, and financial, ties between Chicago and the MBL, see Jane Maienschein, ‘Whitman at Chicago: Establishing a Chicago Style of Biology?’, The American Development of Biology (note 26), pp. 151–82.

The Doctors in Botany of the University of Chicago, A Record of the Doctors in Botany of the University of Chicago 1897–1916 Presented to John Merle Coulter Professor and Head of the Department of Botany by the Doctors in Botany at the Quarter‐Centennial of the University June, 1916 Chicago (Reprinted from the single presentation copy) (Chicago, IL, 1916), p. 30 (text‐fiche; hereafter, cited as RDBUC). About a fellowship, see Yamanouchi, ‘The Life History of Polysiphonia Violacea (Preliminary Note)’ (note 25).

See Yamanouchi, ‘The Life History of Polysiphonia Violacea’ (note 25), p. 403. As for Coulter, see RDBUC, iv–vii; Rodgers (note 27). Regarding Charles J. Chamberlain, see RDBUC (note 29), p. 1, and Gloria Robinson, ‘Chamberlain, Charles Joseph’, Dictionary of Scientific Biography, ed. by Charles Coulston Gillispie and others, 16 vols (New York, 1970–80), III, 187–88.

RDBUC (note 29), p. 30.

Yamanouchi, ‘The Life History of Polysiphonia Violacea’ (note 25).

For instance, see Shigeo Yamanouchi, ‘Apogamy in Nephrodium (Preliminary Note)’, Botanical Gazette, 44 (2) (August 1907), 142–46; ‘Sporogenesis in Nephrodium’, Botanical Gazette, 45 (1) (January 1908), 1–30; ‘Spermatogenesis, Oogenesis, and Fertilization in Nephrodium’, Botanical Gazette, 45 (3) (March 1908), 145–75; ‘Apogamy in Nephrodium’, Botanical Gazette 45 (5) (May 1908), 289–318; ‘Mitosis in Fucus’, Botanical Gazette, 47(3) (March 1909), 173–97; ‘Cytology of Cutleria and Aglaozonia: A Preliminary Paper’, Botanical Gazette, 48 (5) (November 1909), 380–86; ‘Chromosomes in Osmunda’, Botanical Gazette, 49 (1) (January 1910), 1–12; ‘The Life History of Cutleria’, Botanical Gazette, 54 (6) (December 1912), 441–502.

See Yamanouchi, ‘Mitosis in Fucus’ (note 33), p. 174.

The opportunity to study in Italy was provided by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. See the handwritten MS (photocopy), Yamanouchi's detailed CV in ‘“Tsuruoka hyakunen no jinbutsu to jiseki” chôsa hyô tsuzuri’, fols 225–28. He noted materials collected in Italy in Yamanouchi, ‘Cytology of Cutleria and Aglaozonia: A Preliminary Paper’ (note 33), p. 380, ‘The Life History of Cutleria’ (note 33), pp. 441 and 445, ‘The Life History of Zanardinia’, Botanical Gazette, 56 (1) (July 1913), 2, and two articles published in Japanese, ‘Zanarudenia no seiikushi (yohô)’, Shokubutsugaku zasshi, 288 (1911), 9–11, and ‘Sangomo no seiikushi’, Shokubutsugaku zasshi 318 (1913), 279–85. See also SJJ (note 19), p. 642. For Yamanouchi's own observation of people and facilities of the Zoological Station, see Yamanouchi sensei, ‘Nêpurusu no rinkai jikkenjo’, Kaihô, 12 (1910), 11–14. For the research table system, see Charles Atwood Kofoid, ‘The Biological Stations of Europe’, United States Bureau of Education Bulletin, 4 (1910), 13; Nagasawa Rokurô, ‘Ôshû no seibutsugaku jikkenjo’, Dôbutsugaku zasshi, 23 (15 July 1911), 395–405; Ebert, ‘Carnegie Institution of Washington’, p. 173, and Mizoguchi, ‘Nihon no kenkyûseki no kakuritsu’ (note 9). For more on the Zoological Station, see ‘Karl Ernst von Baer (1792–1876) Anton Dohrn (1840–1909) Correspondence’, ed. by Christiane Groeben, intro. by Jane M. Oppenheimer, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society held at Philadelphia for Promoting Useful Knowledge, 83 (3) (1993), and Christiane Groeben, ‘Anton Dohrn—The Statesman of Darwinism’, Biological Bulletin, 168 (Supplement) (June 1985), 4–25, and other articles in this issue of Biological Bulletin featuring ‘The Naples Zoological Station and The Marine Biological Laboratory: One Hundred Years of Biology’. I owe thanks to Mizoguchi for sharing copies of letters and other documents held at the NZS archives written by, and in support of, Yamanouchi. See also Mizoguchi, ‘Japanese Biologists at the Naples Zoological Station’ (note 9), p. 105.

According to almost all the issues of the Science Citation Index, his works have been cited between 1945 and 1994. Exceptions are editions covering scientific publications in 1969, 1987, and 1989. See also Chihara and West (note 9), p. 83.

George F. Papenfuss, ‘Progress and Outstanding Achievements in Phycology during the Past Fifty Years’, American Journal of Botany, 44 (1) (January 1957), 74–81 (pp. 75, 76, 81).

For Papenfuss's fuller treatment of the progress and achievements in phycology, see George F. Papenfuss, ‘Classification of the Algae’, in A Century of Progress in the Natural Sciences 1853–1953 (San Francisco, CA, 1955), pp. 115–224. Papenfuss received a doctorate from John Hopkins in 1933 and was never a direct student or colleague of Yamanouchi at Chicago. As scholars of algae, Chihara and West note the significance of Yamanouchi's research; see their article (note 9), p. 81.

Yamanouchi Shigeo, ‘Zanarudenia no seiikushi (yohô)’ (note 35), pp. 9–11.

Bakumatsu Meiji kaigai tokôsha sôran, ed. by Tezuka Akira, 3 vols (Tokyo, 1992), ii, 455.

He was given the rigaku hakushi degree on 25 July 1911 by the education minister. For details, see Monbushô, ‘Gakui juyo’, Kanpô, 8439 (8 August 1911), 157; ‘Gakui juyo’, Tôyô gakugei zasshi, 360 (September 1911), 484; ‘Ôno Naoe shi oyobi Yamanouchi Shigeo shi no gakui shôju’, Shokubutsugaku zasshi, 295 (1911), 330–32; ‘Yamanouchi Shigeo sensei no gakui juryô’, Kaihô, 14 (1912), 89–92.

Monbushô, ‘Ryûgakusei shuppatsu’, Kanpô, 8334 (7 April 1911), 198, and Watanabe Minoru, Kindai Nihon kaigai ryûgakuseishi, 2 vols (Tokyo, 1977–78), ii, 1116, 1118, 1218. It seems the Ministry of Education granted the fellowship because it did not want to terminate Yamanouchi's appointment at the Tokyo Teachers' College when he expressed interest in accepting the University of Chicago's offer to teach and do research there between 1911 and 1912. See ‘Yamanouchi Shigeo sensei no gakui juryô’, Kaihô, 14 (1912), 89.

The content of these lectures was later published as a book. See William E. Castle, John M. Coulter, Charles B. Davenport, Edward M. East, and William L. Tower, Heredity and Eugenics (Chicago, IL, 1912).

See Rodgers (note 27), p. 261. Castle was a Harvard zoologist famous for his widely read textbook Genetics and Eugenics (Cambridge, MA, 1916). At the time East was an assistant professor of experimental plant morphology at Harvard. Tower was an associate professor of zoology at the University of Chicago. All three were known as geneticists, too.

He returned to Japan on April 19, 1913. Monbushô, ‘Ryûgakusei kichô’, Kanpô, 245 (26 May 1913), 589, and Watanabe (note 42), ii, 1116; SJJ (note 19), pp. 642–43; Tezuka (note 40), ii, 455.

Kevles (note 5), p. 43. For more on this subject, see, for instance, Diane B. Paul and Barbara A. Kimmelman, ‘Mendel in America: Theory and Practice, 1900–1919’, The American Development of Biology (note 26), pp. 281–310. See also Morgan (note 13).

James D. Ebert documents the ironic financial decisions made by the Carnegie Institution. Because Whitman, director of the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, resisted the Carnegie Institution's takeover of the MBL to solve its financial problems, the institution gave the money to Davenport, who proposed to build a Station for Experimental Evolution at Cold Spring Harbor, instead. As a result, Davenport left Chicago. See Ebert (note 25), p. 180.

Kevles (note 5), pp. 44–45.

In 1879, Whitman succeeded the zoology professor at Tokyo, Edward Morse (1838–1925). Whitman taught four students including Ishikawa during the two years at Tokyo University.

Ishikawa Chiyomatsu, ‘Hoittoman sensei’, Dôbutsugaku zasshi, 23 (March 1911), 150. This obituary was translated by Yamanouchi and held in the Whitman Papers at the Archives of the Joseph Regenstein Library at the University of Chicago. See Maienschein (note 28), p. 177, and note 54 on p. 180. For an important analysis of the growth of Mendelian genetics in the early twentieth century, see Garland E. Allen, Thomas Hunt Morgan: The Man of His Science (Princeton, NJ, 1978).

For his own words explaining the relationship between cytology and the Mendelian premise, see, for example, Yamanouchi Shigeo, Saibô to iden (Tokyo, 1914), p. 221, and ‘Jikken kagaku no kokoromi: Seimei no kiseiteki mikata’, Kyôiku gakujutsukai, 34 (1) (1916), 1–5 (p. 3).

See Yamanouchi Shigeo, ‘Naruse sensei to Jadoson sensei no kaiken’, Katei shûhô, 511 (11 April 1919). Concerning the Association Concordia, see documents in Shibusawa Eiichi denki shiryô, ed. by Shibusawa Seishû Kinen Zaidan Ryûmonsha, 68 vols (Tokyo, 1955–71), xlvi, 406–730 (hereafter cited as SEDS) and the official publication Kiitsu Kyôkai kaihô.

Yamanouchi, ‘Naruse sensei to Jadoson sensei no kaiken’ (note 52). Naruse successfully collected support from over one hundred and seventy people, mostly university professors. The Association began losing focus after the death of Naruse in 1919. See also Nakajima Kuni, ‘Kiitsu Kyôkai shôkô (2): Sono shoki no katsudô o chûshin ni’, Nihon Joshi Daigaku kiyô Bungakubu, 37 (March 1988), 47–76. For more on their meetings in Chicago, see Naruse Jinzô, ‘Ôbei ryokô hôkoku’, Kiitsu kyôkai kaihô, 2 (July 1913), 91–111.

Of course, democracy is a relative term and the Taisho era was not a clear‐cut democratic period. For a balanced treatment of state control and democracy during the Taisho period, see Sheldon Garon, The State and Labor in Modern Japan (Berkeley, CA, 1987) and Andrew Gordon, Labor and Imperial Democracy in Prewar Japan (Berkeley, CA, 1991).

Yamanouchi Shigeo, ‘Sangomo no seiikushi’ (note 35), pp. 279–85. This article was later translated as ‘Life History of Corallina Officinalis Var. Mediterranea’ by Clarence C. Bausman and published in the Botanical Gazette, 72 (2) (August 1921), 90–96. Corallina officinalis is a kind of red alga. This study was based on his research in Naples.

Yamanouchi Sada, letter (note 23). In 1918, the first chair for genetics was endowed at Tokyo University by Osaka financiers; Fujii was named its professor. Fujii's expertise lay in genetics based on plant cytology. Another Japanese plant cytologist and geneticist, Miyake, received his doctorate from Cornell University in 1902 and, like Fujii, studied with Eduard Strasburger in Germany. Miyake was appointed as a faculty member in agriculture at Tokyo University. Makino was an accomplished plant taxonomist with little formal education.

For an example of poor research facilities at the Tokyo Teachers' College, see Tsukuba Hisaharu, ‘Kaisetsu’, Kindai Nihon shisô taikei, 36 vols (Tokyo, 1974–90), ix, Oka Asajirô shû, 438.

Yamanouchi, Saibô to iden (note 51), p. 209.

Ibid. (note 51), pp. 209–21.

For a review of these works, see N.S.sei, (pseudonym) ‘Shitsugi ôtô: Toi 12 iden ni kansuru Nihonbun no ryôsho o shiritashi (Mumeishi)’, Dôbutsugaku zasshi, 27 (March 1915), 172. See also the praise of a prominent geneticist Shinotô Yoshito (b. 1895) for Yamanouchi's Saibô to iden (note 51) and Idenron (Tokyo, 1915) in Shinotô (note 13), p. 149.

Yamanouchi delivered this lecture on 17 April 1914. As for the Association Concordia, see ‘The Concordia Movement’, in Naruse Jinzô chosakushû, ed. by Naruse Jinzô Chosakushû Henshû Iinkai, 3 vols (Tokyo, 1974–81), III, 1068–71.

SEDS (note 52), xlvi, 500–09.

In this presentation, Yamanouchi seems to have used the contents of chapters 16–19 of Saibô to iden (note 51). See Yamanouchi Shigeo, ‘Iden’, Kiitsu Kyôkai kaihô, 6 (November 1915), 24–58 (p. 48).

Yamanouchi, ‘Iden’ (note 63), p. 32.

As for Francis Galton's evolutionary view being similar to Weismann's, author Pat Shipman writes, ‘Galton had arrived at a similar, if vaguer concept, of the “stirp” or root element that transmitted characteristics from parent to offspring. No acquired traits could be inherited if Weismann or Galton were correct, since these would not affect the germ plasm’. See her The Evolution of Racism: Human Differences and the Use and Abuse of Science (New York, 1994), p. 117.

Yamanouchi, ‘Iden’ (note 63), p. 56.

Ibid. (note 63), p. 58.

See Morgan's observation on this point in his article (note 13), pp. 718–19.

Although Yamanouchi used ‘jinshu kairyô’ for a headline describing the content of one segment of his talk, the actual word he used in the body was ‘minzoku kairyô’. The Japanese term ‘minzoku’ can be more closely associated with the German notion of ‘Volk’; equating ‘minzoku’ and ‘jinshu’ may be inaccurate in certain contexts. However, since Yamanouchi himself used the terms interchangeably, I translate ‘minzoku’ as ‘race’ here. For the content of this lecture, see Yamanouchi Shigeo, ‘Iden to seinen no sekinin,’ Katei shûhô, 297 (11 December 1914), 3, and Katei shûhô, 298 (18 December 1914), 4. Paying careful attention to historical and discursive contexts, Kevin M. Doak has noted that ‘minzoku’ emerged from various discussions on race in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. See his ‘Culture, Ethnicity, and the State in Early Twentieth‐Century Japan’, in Japan's Competing Modernities: Issues in Culture and Democracy, 1900–1930, ed. by Sharon A. Minichiello (Honolulu, HI, 1998), pp. 181–205.

Yamanouchi's relationship with Naruse remained cordial until Naruse's death in 1919. Yamanouchi visited Naruse a couple of times while Naruse was in his death‐bed. Yamanouchi later recalled that he was impressed by Naruse's vision, enthusiasm, and compassion. See Yamanouchi, ‘Naruse sensei to Jadoson hakase no kaiken’ (note 52). See also Yamanouchi Sada, letter (note 23).

Yamanouchi taught at the Japan Women's College until 1927. See a handwritten MS, Shomuka, ‘Nihon Joshi Daigakkô kyôshokuin Meiji 34‐Shôwa 19’, (Tokyo, 1978), fol. 63. I am grateful to Moroi Sakiko for locating this document. Perhaps as an outgrowth of his lectures at the college, he published a textbook‐like work Katei seibutsugaku (Home Biology) (Tokyo) in 1924.

‘Fujin Mondai Kenkyûkai no enkaku tairyaku’ and ‘Fujin Mondai Kenkyû kaiin’, Fujin mondai, 1 (1) (October 1918), 2–7.

Yamanouchi Shigeo, ‘“Yûzenikkusu” ni tsuite (2)’, Fujin mondai, 1 (3) (December 1918), 350. Yamanouchi's connection with the Japan Women's College was more than just his close association with Naruse. Yamanouchi's wife Yaeko, whom he married in 1911, was a graduate of Naruse's college. See Yamanouchi Sada (Shigeo's second wife and an alumna of the Japan Women's College), letter (note 23), and ‘Yamanouchi sensei’, Kaihô, 13 (1911), 86.

See Yamanouchi Shigeo, ‘Seibutsugakujô yori mitaru jinrui to rentai sekinin’, in Kiitsu kyôkai sôsho, 10 vols (Tokyo, 1916–25), i, Shakai dôtokujô no kyôdô sekinin, ed. by Kiitsu Kyôkai, 47–73 (p. 47). It is interesting to note that Yamanouchi published another book on the biological impact of wars, Seishoku to sensô, Jiji Sôsho, No. 22 (Tokyo, 1915), around the same time. This is consistent with his involvement in a peace organization like the Association Concordia.

Yamanouchi, ‘Seibutsugakujô yori mitaru jinrui to rentai sekinin’ (note 74), p. 71.

Ibid. (note 74), pp. 47–73.

The concept of foetal education or prenatal care, originally from ancient Chinese medicine, may have been quite familiar to the audience. A few years earlier psychologist Shimoda Jirô (1872–1938), professor of Tokyo Teachers' College for Women, published Taikyô (Prenatal Care) (Tokyo, 1913). In this book, he argued that pregnant women should see things positively, read good books, refrain from drinking, and sleep well so that they could develop good babies in an effective and economical way. This book became a bestseller and by 1932 the book had gone through seventy‐two editions. See Karasawa Tomitarô, ‘Shimoda Jirô’, in Zusetsu kyôiku jinbutsu jiten, ed. by Karasawa (Tokyo: Gyôsei, 1984), iii 799–802. Shimoda was not a member of the Woman Problem Study Group.

See also Ishinpô, by Tanba Yasuyori, 30 vols (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobô, 1993–), xxii, Taikyô shussan hen, trans. and annotated by Maki Sachiko. Ishinpô (984, Prescriptions at the Heart of Medicine) is the oldest surviving Japanese medical text and a compilation of excerpts from earlier Chinese medical work. For Chinese foetal education, see note 93.

See Yamanouchi, ‘Jinrui no iden’ (‘Human Heredity’), Kyôiku gakujutsukai, 34 (2) (November 1916), 224–25, documenting his lecture at the forty‐fourth popular lecture of psychology, held at the forensic medicine seminar of medical college, Tokyo University. It was also published as ‘Jinrui no iden’, Shinri kenkyû, 11 (1) (January 1917), 1–8. See also Jinrui no shinka (Evolution of Humans) published from Kokushi Kôshûkai in 1922. Compare this with Morgan's critical view on prenatal impressions. He saw them as ‘the most pathetic of all the inventions of human credulity’. See Morgan (note 13), p. 714.

About his effort not to discriminate against any particular race in US immigration laws, see Sandra C. Taylor, Advocate of Understanding: Sidney Gulick and the Search for Peace with Japan (Kent, OH, 1984) and Izumi Hirobe, Japanese Pride, American Prejudice: Modifying the Exclusion Clause of the 1924 Immigration Act (Stanford, CA, 2001). For Gulick's role in the Association Concordia, see Taylor, p. 77.

See, for example, Sidney L. Gulick, ‘Race Betterment and America's Oriental Problem’, in Proceedings of the First National Conference on Race Betterment 8–12 January 1914, ed. by Secretary of Race Betterment Foundation (Battle Creek, MI, 1914), pp. 546–51, and Robert Ward, ‘Race Betterment and Our Immigration Laws’, in the same volume, pp. 542–46.

As for the issue of race, see the Association's statement at the time of its establishment in SEDS (note 52), xlvi, 430 and 431. For more on discussions on anti‐Japanese immigration in the USA and racial prejudice at various Association Concordia related meetings, see ibid., pp. 482, 488, 494, 577–8, 597, 606, 609, 648, 649, 651, 654–55, 658, 664 and 730. The harmony between Eastern and Western civilizations was one of the most important themes of the Association. For samples of the discussions concerning this issue, see pp. 407, 408, 431 and 492.

Katô Hiroyuki, ‘Dai Nihon Gakujutsu Kyôkai setsuritsu sengensho’, in Yamanouchi, Jinrui no iden (Tokyo, 1917), no page number (in the advertisement section at back).

‘Rigaku hakushi Yamanouchi Shigeo shi Idenron’, Tôyô Gakugei zasshi, 411 (December 1915), 57.

Advertisement at the back of Yamanouchi, Jinrui no iden (note 82), no page number.

Yamanouchi, Jinrui no iden (note 82), pp. 322–34 and 342–43.

Ibid., pp. 97–157.

Ibid., p. 343.

Ibid., p. 341.

Yamanouchi Shigeo, ‘Kaimu purazumu setsu ni hantai suru ichi gakusetsu: Kakutoku sei no iden ni tsuite’, Kyôiku gakujutsukai, 33 (5) (August 1916), 1–4. I am grateful to Okamoto Kôichi of Waseda University, who helped me to obtain this article in a timely manner.

Libbie H. Hyman, ‘Charles Manning Child, 1869–1954’, Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, 30 (1957), 79.

Ibid. (note 90), pp. 79–80. For more on Child, see J. C. Burnham, ‘Child, Charles Manning’, in Dictionary of Scientific Biography (note 30), iii, 247–48.

Yamanouchi Shigeo, ‘Vaisuman no seishokushitsu ni hantai suru iken’, Hakubutsu gakkaishi, 22 (1916), 7–10, and ‘Shokubutsu saibô no zenshinteki rôsui’, Hakubutsu gakkaishi, 24 (1917), 13–16.

Yamanouchi, ‘Jinrui no iden’, pp. 108–09. Frank Dikötter has translated ‘taikyô’ (‘taijiao’ in Chinese) as ‘foetal education’ and described the general compatibility between traditional Chinese notions concerning the environment of pregnant women and central values of modern/Western eugenic science. He has also noted the tension between the popular notions of maternal influence and Mendelism. See Dikötter (note 2), pp. 99–104. Despite the use of the same term, however, Yamanouchi's view of foetal education was different from these Chinese examples. While the Chinese notions of foetal education are largely based on traditional folk beliefs, Yamanouchi's were more directly grounded on modern scientific theories.

See Rodgers (note 27), p. 262. Coulter's works examined by Rodgers here were ‘Inheritance of Acquired Characters’, in Plant Genetics (Chicago, IL, 1918), pp. 16–27, and Evolution, Heredity and Eugenics, School Science Series, No. 5 (Bloomington, IN, 1916). Although he had never articulated his doubt in a theoretical way until 1916, Yamanouchi had been raising the question of the non‐inheritance of acquired characteristics at least since 1914 when he published Saibô to iden. Like Coulter, T. H. Morgan found far fewer zoologists supported the inheritance of acquired characteristics than physiologists and psychologists. See Morgan (note 13), p. 714.

About the Greater Japan Eugenics Society, see ‘Dai Nihon Yûseikai’, Jinsei, 13 (7) (July 1917), 263–64, and descriptions in ‘Nihon Minzoku Eisei Gakkai no sôritsu’, Minzoku eisei, 1 (1) (1931), 94–95, and Gotô Ryûkichi, ‘Yûsei undô ni chokumen shite’, Yûsei undô, 1 (1) (November 1926), 64–66.

Ishizaki Shôko, ‘Bosei hogo, yûsei shisô o megutte’, in Fujo Shinbun to josei no kindai, ed. by Fujo Shinbun o Yomu Kai (Tokyo, 1997), pp. 189–208 (195–96).

For female agency in eugenic policy formulation, see Otsubo, ‘Feminist Maternal Eugenics’ (note 18), and ‘Engendering Eugenics’ (note 17).

See ‘Nihon Minzoku Eisei Gakkai no sôritsu’ (note 95) and Gotô (note 95), p. 66.

Shunjûsei (Gotô Ryûkichi), ‘Yakugo “yûseigaku” raisan’, Yûseigaku, 33 (November 1926), 14. Suzuki Zenji notes that scholars who had used other translations began using the term ‘yûseigaku’ by 1919. See Suzuki (note 5), pp. 75 and 77.

Like Yamanouchi, Ichikawa graduated from the Tokyo Teachers' College. As the principal of a school for girls, he was interested in the application of eugenic principles to society, particularly to women. See Ichikawa Genzô, Nyûgaku, seishunki, kekkon, yûseigaku, haha no saikyôiku: Josei bunka kôwa (1935; repr. Tokyo, 1984), especially pp. 205–40.

Kaneko's articles published in the journal Yûseigaku (Eugenics) included Kaneko Tadakazu, ‘Yûseigaku no kigen’, Yûseigaku, 32 (October 1926), 15–19; ‘Danshu jûnen’, Yûseigaku, 37 (March 1927), 46–48; ‘Goruton igo no yûseigaku’, Yûseigaku, 44 (October 1927), 13–27.

As for Abe, see Suzuki (note 5), Nihon no yûseigaku, pp. 69, 107, 147, 151 and 164.

Contacted by Gotô, they agreed to support the initiative. For Ichikawa and Kaneko, see ‘Zaidan hôjin Nihon Yûseigaku Kyôkai sôritsu hokkinin shimei’, Yûseigaku, 18 (July 1925), 30. For Yamanouchi and Abe, see ‘Dai ni, setsuritsu‐an fu sanseinin’, Yûseigaku, 19 (August 1925), 31, and ‘Dôjin no ken’, Yûseigaku, 21 (October 1925), 30–31. Yamanouchi was also a supporting member of the Japan Eugenic Movement Association (Nihon Yûsei Undô Kyôkai) estabished by Ikeda Shigenori in 1926. See ‘Nihon Yûsei Undô Kyôkai sanjoin’, Yûsei undô, 1 (1) (November 1926), 118. As for Ikeda's eugenic movement, see Suzuki Zenji, ‘Nihon ni okeru yûseigaku undô no ichi sokumen: Ikeda Ringi no “Yûsei undô” o chûshin ni’, Kagakushi kenkyû, 103 (1979), 65–73, and Fujino Yutaka, ‘Yûsei undô no tenkai’, in his Nihon fashizumu to yûsei shisô (Kyoto, 1998), pp. 79–112.

International Congress of Eugenics, A Decade of Progress in Eugenics: Scientific Papers of the Third International Congress of Eugenics held at American Museum of Natural History, New York, 21–23 August 1932 (Baltimore, MD, 1934), pp. 511–31.

See Abe Ayao, Yûsei kôwa (Tokyo, 1936), pp. 97–101, ‘Yûseigaku Dantai Kokusai Renmei International Federation of Eugenic [sic] Organization yori Nihon Minzoku Eisei Gakkai no seiritsu ni taisuru shukuji’, Minzoku eisei, 1 (1) (March 1931), 101. About the IFEO, see ‘Membership and Organization of the International Federation of Eugenics Organizations’, Eugenical News, 13 (1928), 12–16 and Deborah Barrett, ‘Global Quality: Eugenics as an International Social Movement’, paper prepared for the Joint Meeting of the Society for the History of Technology (SHOT) and Society for Social Studies of Science (4S), Charlottesville, VA, 18–22 October 1995.

See Abe Ayao, letter from Taipei to Sakamoto Tatsuki, Foreign Ministry, Tokyo, 9 June 1934, File B, 10, 10, 0, 22, Foreign Ministry Archives, Tokyo.

For example, while an IFEO meeting was held every year between 1922 and 1930, it was held only three times in the 1930s (1932, 1934 and 1936). See C. B. S. Hodson, letter from London to Abe Ayao, Formosa, Japan, 7 March 1935, File B, 10, 10, 0, 22, Foreign Ministry Archives, Tokyo. See also Appendix A, ‘International Conferences on Eugenics, 1900–1990’, in Deborah Barrett, ‘Global Culture and Social Movements: International Eugenics Activity, 1900–1990’, unpublished manuscript (November 1996), fol. 55.

Senjika Nihon bunka dantai jiten (1939; Tokyo: Ôzorasha, 1990), pp. 102–04. Actually the Association was originally established as gakkai or society.

Zukai: Shokubutsu meikan, ed. by Tôkyô Hakubutsugaku Kenkyûkai, rev. by Yamanouchi Shigeo (Tokyo, 1924).

Yamanouchi Shigeo, Shôgakkô ni okeru dôshokubutsu kyôju jikken shishin (Tokyo, 1921).

His various writings seem to indicate that he was synthesizing knowledge in humanities and social sciences. Some of his criticism of humanists and social scientists who missed important points by overlooking insights from sciences is revealing. For example, see Yamanouchi Shigeo, ‘Iden to kyôiku’, Kyôiku gakujutsukai, 32 (1) (1915), 2–4; ‘Bankin no seibutsugaku’, Kyôiku gakujutsukai, 36 (5) (1918), 1–8; ‘Idengakujô yori mitaru kokuminsei’, Kyôiku gakujutsukai, 37 (5) (1918), 1–6; ‘Idengakujô yori mitaru kokuminsei (shôzen)’, Kyôiku gakujutsukai, 37 (6) (1918), 30–34; ‘Seibutsugakujô yori mitaru kyôiku no gainen’, Kyôiku gakujutsukai, 49 (5) (1924), 55–67. We find similarities between Yamanouchi's publications and those of Coulter's. Some of Coulter's earliest works were encyclopedic in nature: Catalogue of the Phaenogamous and Vascular Cryptogamous Plants of Indiana, (co‐authored with Charles R. Barnes and others) (Crawfordville, IN, 1881), Manual of the Botany (Phaenogamia and Pteridophyta) of the Rocky Mountain Region, from New Mexico to the British Boundary (New York, 1885), and New Manual of Rocky Mountain Botany (an expansive revision of the 1881 work; New York, 1909).

These articles include ‘What Biology Has Contributed to Religion’ (1913), ‘Jesus' Attitude Toward a New Religious Movement’ (1914), ‘The Religion of the Scientist’ (1920), ‘Is Evolution Anti‐Christian?’ (1921), and ‘Evolution and its Explanations’ (1922). In 1924, he even published a book, Where Evolution and Religion Meet. Coulter was also articulate in expressing his views on the interface of biology and education in certain education journals: ‘The Mission of Science in Education’ (1900, 1915), ‘Some Problems in Education’ (1901, 1908), ‘Botany as a Factor in Education’ (1904). As for the analysis of his writings exploring the relation between religion and science, see Rodgers (note 27), pp. 292–97. It should be noted that Coulter believed that orthogenesis deserved more attention (p. 296). Suzuki Zenji, in his examination of zoologist Koizumi Makoto's eugenics view, noted that Koizumi was sympathetic towards orthogenesis and critical of the tendency to slight the Lamarckian theory of gradual evolution. See Suzuki (note 5), pp. 134–37. For orthogenesis, closely associated with Lamarckism, see Bowler (note 5), pp. 268–70.

JK (note 19), p. ya‐52.

Yamanouchi also arranged a lecture by John Coulter at an Association Concordia meeting held on 21 February 1924. The American botanist talked about ‘the new spirit of cooperation’. In his opinion, the purpose of education was not limited to passing on knowledge to students, but was also for developing genuine personal character. That was only possible by providing education which could overcome individual self‐interest, promote a spirit of cooperation, and develop human ties beyond national boundaries even among those with different ideas. See Yamanouchi Sada, letter; ‘Yamanouchi sensei’, Hakubutsu gakkaishi, 31 (1924), 122; SEDS, xlvi, 674–76. See also Rodgers (note 27), p. 298.

‘Yamanouchi sensei’, Hakubutsu gakkaishi, 32 (1925), 94; ‘Eiga Evolution jôei ni tsuite’, Hakubutsu gakkaishi, 33 (1926), 100–02; ‘Yamanouchi Shigeo shi: (Rihaku, Tôkyô Kôshi shokubutsugaku kyôshitsu)’, Hakubutsu gakkaishi, 34 (1927), 82–83.

‘Yamanouchi Shigeo sensei o mukaete’, Hakubutsu gakkaishi, 39 (1930), 97–99; Yamanouchi Shigeo, ‘Dorai Torutûgasu’, Hakubutsu gakkaishi, 50 (1933), 4–5; ‘Kankeisha dôseiroku’, Shônaikan hôkoku, 32 (1928), 62, 65; ‘Kankeisha dôseiroku’, Shônaikan hôkoku, 33 (1929), 50; Yamanouchi Shigeo, location?, to Shônaikan, Tokyo?, n.d. (Autumn?) 1930, reprinted as ‘Yamanouchi Shigeo shi tsûshin’, Shônaikan hôkoku, 34 (1930), 96–7; Yamanouchi Shigeo, Tokyo?, to Shônaikan, Tokyo?, n.d. (Autumn?) 1931, reprinted as ‘Yamanouchi Shigeo shi tsûshin’, Shônaikan hôkoku, 35 (1931), 78. As for Yamanouchi's research associate position at the University of Chicago, see AMS (note 19), 6th edn (New York, 1938) p. 1585. See also SJJ (note 19), p. 643. Fore more on the Marine Biological Laboratory at the Dry Tortugas, Florida, see Ebert (note 25), pp. 180–82.

About his trip back from the US to Japan, see ‘Yôkoso okaeri, Hinomaru no minato e; Asama‐maru, Konde Verude‐gô Shônan nyûkô’, Tôkyô nichi nichi shinbun, 10 August 1942, p. 2, and ‘Ko o kabau hahaoya no demo, seifu awatete dan'atsu su, haisen ga umu Beikoku no higeki’, Yomiuri hôchi shinbun, 12 August 1942, p. 2.

See, for example, a letter from Naruse Jinzô, Massachusetts, USA, to Naruse Masue, 14 February 1891, ‘Shokan’, in Naruse Jinzô chosakushû (note 61), i, 256.

Yamanouchi Sada, letter (note 23), ‘Yamanouchi sensei’, Kaihô, 13 (1911), 86, and personal communication with a member of the Yamanouchi family who wants to remain anonymous, 29 July 1997.

I agree with sociologist Ichinokawa Yasutaka, who argues, based on his studies on German eugenics, that a simplistic equation between Nazi eugenics, war, statism, and racism makes other aspects of eugenics obscure. Indeed, this association between Nazism, Japanese fascism, and eugenics, quite prevalent in Japan, obfuscates the existence of some eugenicists who were also interested in world peace through closing of the putative ‘racial’ gap. See Ichinokawa Yasutaka and Tateiwa Shin'ya, ‘Shôgaisha undô kara miete kuru mono’, Gendai shisô, 26 (2) (1998), 258–85 (pp. 259–62). See also Ichinokawa's chapters in Yonemoto, Matsubara, Nudeshima, and Ichikawa (note 2), pp. 51–140. Yamanouchi idealized peace and observed that a war could be seen as something to be prevented from a moral, political, economic, hygienic, or sociological perspective. However, biologically speaking, it was inevitable for the survival of racial stocks—in his opinion, in this sense, a war should be seen as ‘natural’ and stands beyond our moral judgment. See Yamanouchi Shigeo, Seishoku to sensô (Tokyo, 1915).

For discussions situating the Japanese in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries racial hierarchy, see Morris Low, ‘The Japanese Nation in Evolution: W.E. Griffis, Hybridity and Whiteness of the Japanese Race’, History and Anthropology, 11 (2–3) (1999), 203–34, and Joseph M. Henning, Outposts of Civilization: Race, Religion, and the Formative Years of American‐Japanese Relations (New York, 2000).

For example, Yamanouchi's colleague Oka Asajirô, a neo‐Darwinist zoologist, was also sympathetic to the inheritance of acquired characteristics. Oka even criticized Yamanouchi for being too Mendelist. In the 1890s Oka studied under August Weismann, but left to study with Karl Leuckart because of theoretical disagreements with the former. See Otsubo Sitcawich, ‘Eugenics in Imperial Japan: Some Ironies of Modernity, 1883–1945’ (note 1), pp. 128–31. In her comparative study of Chinese and Japanese eugenics, Yuehtsen Juliette Chung notes the significance of Lamarckian ideas, ‘since Lamarckism offered a more humane alternative to the depressing aspect of Mendelism and provided a foundation for the wishful belief that evolution was necessarily progressive’. See chapter 4, ‘Lamarckism versus Mendelism: The Politics of Body and Heredity’, in her dissertation (note 18), pp. 159–231 (p. 160). A similar dilemma and modification are observed in the Japanese reaction to social Darwinism; see Unoura Hiroshi's ‘Kindai Nihon ni okeru shakai Dâwinizumu no juyô to tenkai’, in Kôza shinka, ed. by Shibatani Atsuhiro, Nagano Kei and Yôrô Takeshi, 7 vols (Tokyo, 1991–92), ii, Shinka shisô to shakai, 119–52. See the English version of his work, Hiroshi Unoura, ‘Samurai Darwinism: Hiroyuki Katô and the Reception of Darwin's Theory in Modern Japan from the 1880s to the 1900s’, History and Anthropology, 11 (2–3) (1999), 235–55. See also Tomiyama Ichirô, ‘Kokumin no tanjô to “Nihonjinshu”’, Shisô, 845 (1994), 46. For the strong soft approach to heredity in China, see Dikötter (note 2), pp. 5 and 89–91. For discussions of ‘colonialist’ relationships between the West (often equivalent to white) and the non‐West (often equivalent to coloured) countries in science, see Nancy Leys Stepan, ‘The Hour of Eugenics’: Race, Gender, and Nation in Latin America (Ithaca, NY, 1991) and Morris Fraser Low, ‘The Butterfly and the Frigate: Social Studies of Science in Japan’, Social Studies of Science, 19 (3) (1989), 313–42.