Erwin Bälz

Erwin Otto Eduard von Bälz often simply known as Erwin Bälz (without the noble von particle), was a German internist, anthropologist, and personal physician to the Japanese Imperial Family and cofounder of modern western medicine in Japan. Quotes Well, the Germans, too, are surrounded by a “great wall.” This wall is not built of masonry, but is spiritual. Anything outside the wall is regarded with contempt. But when such a superior person goes abroad, and finds how much he has been misinformed, he is apt, unless he is a person of very stable temperament, to rush to the opposite extreme, and thence to look down upon all that he has previously venerated. That is why so many Germans who go abroad are lost to Germany. But one who, having gone abroad, remains a good German and wants to enlighten his fellow-countrymen is not understood at home and is despitefully used. Baelz, Erwin. Awakening Japan: The Diary of a German Doctor, ed. Toku Baelz, trans. Eden and Cedar Paul (Bloomington, IN, 1974). quoted in Suzanne L. Marchand - German Orientalism in the Age of Empire. Religion, Race, and Scholarship-Cambridge University Press (2009) External links Category:1849 births Category:1913 deaths Category:Physicians from Germany Category:Academics from Germany Category:Anthropologists from Germany