Abstract
A physician by training, Akashi Hiroakira (1839-1910, pseudonym Seiran)
was a pioneer of Kyoto modernization. While working as a bureaucrat in
Kyoto Prefecture in the early Meiji period, he spearheaded the establishment
of the Kyoto Seimikyoku 舎密局 (Kyoto Chemical Bureau) and the
Kyoto Ryōbyō-in 療病院 (Kyoto Hospital). The first published biography of
Akashi was A Short Biography of Seiran Ō Akashi Hiroakira 静瀾翁明石
博高略伝 (1916, private edition) written by his son, Akashi Atsuaki. Later,
Atsuaki provided a series of Wagener’s chemical lectures at the Seimikyoku,
which had been compiled by his father Hiroakira, for use in the
Biography of Dr. Gottfried Wagener, edited by Ueda Toyokitsu (Hakurankai
Shuppan Kyōkai, 1925).
