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The European tradition of sending doctors with botanical training to Japan was a long one.

Sent on a mission by the Dutch East India Company, Engelbert Kaempfer ( 1651 – 1716 ), a German physician and botanist who lived in Japan from 1690 until 1692, ushered in this tradition of a combination of physician and botanist.

The Dutch East India Company did not, however, actually employ the Swedish botanist and physician Carl Peter Thunberg ( 1743 – 1828 ), who arrived in Japan in 1775.