Sugita Genpaku (杉田 玄白, 20 October 1733 – 1 June 1817) was a Japanese physician and scholar known for his translation of Kaitai Shinsho (New Book of Anatomy) and a founder of Rangaku (Western learning) and Ranpō (Dutch style medicine) in Japan.

The German drawings were more anatomically detailed and accurate than Chinese texts and after the dissection he and his colleagues made it their scholarly mission to produce a Japanese translation of the Ontleekundige Tafelen.

Genpaku moved away from his father's home at age 25 after being granted permission from his liege lord to begin working as a medical practitioner.

During this period, Nagasaki was the only port of entry and only Holland was allowed to enter Japan, as their transactions were understood to be exclusively pertaining to trade.

[2] As relations evolved with the Dutch, the eighth shogun, Tokugawa Yoshimune (ruled 1716–45), allowed Rangaku (Western learning) to take hold in Japan.

Yoshimune launched efforts to systematically study Dutch in 1740, giving rise to the scholarly pursuit of rangaku, however this learning was still restricted from the general public.

Genpaku attended one such demonstration in 1768 where a Dutch surgeon, Rudolf Bauer, cured a patient with gangrene of the tongue by drawing blood from the infected area.

[5] On March 4, 1771 Genpaku and colleagues Maeno Ryōtaku, Hoshū Katsuragawa, and Junan Nakagawa witnessed a dissection of a female criminal, Aocha-Baba ("Green Tea Hag"), who was executed by beheading.

On their walk home from the execution grounds where they witnessed the dissection, Genpaku and Ryōtaku decided to dedicate themselves to making a Japanese translation of Ontleekundige Tafelen.

[1] Translating Ontleekundige Tafelen took Genpaku and Ryōtaku three full years and at least eleven manuscripts before the final product, Kaitai Shinsho, was published in 1774.

With only Maeno's 600 word Dutch vocabulary to complete the translation, the first edition of Kaitai Shinsho was crude and contained errors and omissions.

[1] After mentoring many students in Rangaku—including Gentaku Otsuki, Shojuro Arai, and Genzui Udagawa—Genpaku began spending more time working as a physician than as a scholar towards the end of his life.

A few years passed and Genshin continued his studies of Rangaku and bettered his ambitions, eventually gaining favor of the Udagawas who were friends of Genpaku.