OSAKA -- A bronze bust of Koenraad Wolter Gratama, a 19th-century Dutch chemist considered the father of Japanese chemistry, has been installed near the site where a state-run chemistry school was once located in Osaka.
The bust of Gratama (1831-1888) was erected Sunday near the former school site in Osaka's Chuo Ward as part of events to commemorate 400 years of ties between Japan and the Netherlands.
The chemist, who arrived in Nagasaki in 1866 at the invitation of the Tokugawa shogunate, began Japan's first organized teaching of the science as an assistant principal at the school in 1869 at the request of the new Meiji government. The school later relocated to Kyoto, where it evolved into the current Kyoto University.
About 60 chemists and others who provided donations to create the 8.6 million yen bust attended a ceremony to celebrate the installment.
"I am delighted because we can commend the achievements of Gratama forever," Tetsuo Shiba, professor emeritus of Osaka University, said at the ceremony.
Dutch Consul General Jan de Vries and others unveiled the 80-cm-high bust of Gratama sporting a mustache and dressed in a suit and bow tie.
In April, Dutch Crown Prince Willem Alexander and descendants of Gratama attended a completion ceremony for the bust.
Gratama returned to the Netherlands in 1871 after his contract expired, but he left behind a crop of pupils who went on to become pioneers in Japanese chemistry.
Among them were Jokichi Takamine (1854-1922), who isolated adrenaline in crystalline form from bovine adrenal glands, and Kikunae Ikeda (1864-1936), who developed a commercial seasoning now known as "ajinomoto" (monosodium glutamate).
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