温度计、湿度计的发明及其传入中国、日本和朝鲜的历史

THE INVENTION OF THERMOMETER AND HYGROMETER AND THE HISTORY OF THEIR INTRODUCTION INTO CHINA, JAPAN AND KOREA

在简述近代温度计、湿度计在17世纪欧洲的早期研制情况后,证明通过比利时和法国耶稣会士的介绍,中国在同一世纪已在东亚率先制成并使用了这两种仪器;同时考证了它们最初引入日本和朝鲜两国的历史。文内利用中外史料提供东西不同文化间科学仪器交流的细节。

After talking about the invention of thermometer and hygrometer in Europe in the 17th century, this paper investigates the early manufacture and use of the two scientific instruments in China. It was the Belgian Jesuit Ferdinand Verbiest who introduced and first made them in Peking for the Imperial Observatory in about 1670. Then the French Jesuit Joannes de Fountaney presented in 1689 another type of them made in France to Emperor Kangxi, who put them into use in his palace. In 1683, models of the instruments were made by the Chinese scientist Huang Luzhuang in Jiangsu Province. From then on, the thermometer and hygrometer became popular in China. According to a piece of Dutch material, the earliest Japanese thermometer was made by Hiraga Gennai in 1768, later than the one manufactured in China by 98 years. As to the hygrometer, it appeared in a medical work of Uddkawa Genshin in 1822. The Korean people grasped the two instruments even later than the Japanese. The famous scientist Yi Kyui-kyun seems to be the first to describe them and even tried to make models of them according to Chinese sources on later than the 1830s. A lot of both Chinese and foreign materials is cited in the paper to provide the details of the exchange of scientific instruments between the different cultures of the East and the West.