Nine Years in Nipon
Sketches of Japanese Life and Manners

A Scottish doctor and fingerprinting pioneer's 1885 account of his time in Japan working as a surgeon and missionary.

Henry Faulds (Author)

9781108081627, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 2 July 2015

318 pages, 56 b/w illus. 1 colour illus. 3 maps
21.7 x 14 x 2 cm, 0.44 kg

The Scottish doctor Henry Faulds (1843–1930) is best remembered for his role in the history of fingerprinting. His strong religious faith had first led him to missionary work in India and then, from 1874, in Japan. He worked there as a surgeon in the mission hospital at Tsukiji, near Tokyo, where he also established a medical school and a school for the blind. It was his discovery of the impressions of thumbprints on ancient Japanese pottery which led to his development of a fingerprinting system and his championing of it as a forensic tool. The present work, part-travelogue, part-journal, was first published in 1885. It remains an engaging account of Japanese life, customs, geography and natural history, interwoven with discussions of topics such as education, language, and the future of the country. There are characterful line drawings throughout. Faulds' Dactylography (1912) is also reissued in the Cambridge Library Collection.

Preface
1. Introductory
2. First impressions of Yokohama
3. A run on the Tokio railway
4. Street scenes
5. Life in Tokio
6. A consultation in the hills
7. A consultation in the hills (cont.)
8. Mitake San
9. Pilgrimage to Fugi the peerless
10. Pilgrimage to Fugi the peerless (cont.)
11. In a cottage by the sea
12. Trip to the tomb of Iyeyasu
13. Nagasaki and the inland sea
14. Ten days on the Tokaido
15. Japanese philosophy of flowers
16. The language of Nipon
17. Schools
18. A glimpse of the land of neglected education
19. My garden and its guests
20. Japanese art in relation to nature
21. The philosophy of heaven and earth in a nutshell
22. Homes of the people
23. How the Japanese amuse themselves
24. Japanese manners and customs, negative and positive
25. General survey.

Subject Areas: Asian history [HBJF]