Nihon ishigaku zasshi. [Journal of Japanese history of medicine]最新文献

In May 1810, the wife of Rihei Hiroseya, from Takayama, Hida Province, received an excision of a breast cancer tumor at Shunrinken in Hirayama, Kishu Province. Hirose asked Gaku Nomura, one of the Hanaoka's disciples, to make a manuscript describing his wife's surgery. In reply to Hirose's request, Nomura made the manuscript including her history and operative procedures, with illustrations of 13 other surgical cases of breast cancer, and he gave it to him the next month. The manuscript, titled Seishu sensei ryo nyugan zuki, is extant and this is considered to be the one that Nomura gave Hirose because there has been no other manuscript with this title and the manuscript is carefully recorded and bound. This suggests that there must be a draft of Seishu sensei ryo nyugan zuki. A manuscript titled Nyugan no zu is in the possession of the National Diet Library and it is considered to have been originally stitched temporarily, and then bound later. However, the contents of this manuscript are identical to those of Seishu sensei ryo nyugan zuki. In particular, illustrations in both manuscripts are highly likely have been made by the same illustrator, although sentences in both manuscripts are recorded by different hands. Thus, it is likely that Nomura asked an illustrator to make two sets of illustrations and Nomura used one for his presentation to Hirose and another for a draft, and that Nyugan no zu is a draft of Seishu sensei ryo nyugan zuki.

This study confirmed opinions on surrogacy conducted by obstetricians who were affiliated with a university in the 1980s, based on the clue that a child was born using human in vitro fertilization (IVF) in 1983. This research also examined the question of why Japanese obstetricians limited the target population for IVF to legally married couples and excluded women (wives) who had undergone total hysterectomies. The women's movement has criticized the gender discrimination that occurred in IVF. Obstetricians had predicted the advancement of human IVF, and that it would raise legal and ethical issues regarding this form of surrogacy. Around this time, there was a lawsuit known as the Fujimi Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital Case, which exposed the realities of performing a total hysterectomy after an unjustified diagnosis. It was believed that obstetricians had obstructed the normal sequence of events in which a patient selects surrogacy after undergoing a hysterectomy.

We examined the first appearing papers of a series of the Mizushima Prefectural Life Table and checked its publication history and the transition of manufacturing methods as a first step in order to examine the theory that life expectancy in Okinawa has been long from a long time ago. However, the Prefectural Life Table of 1921-25 was first published in 1960, and its original form (as the "Pre-publication of the 1921-25 Prefectural Life Table") was estimated to have been started after WWII and completed in 1952-1954, based on the publication history and the transition of the manufacturing methods. In our next publication we will examine the change in the self-recognition about the accuracy of data from Okinawa in the Mizushima Prefectural Life Table, and discuss its relationship to the "Okinawa Is a Traditional Longevity Prefecture" theory.

In 1809, Kihan Akaishi (1785-1847), one of the disciples of Seishu Hanaoka who ran a private medical school "Shunrinken," planed to publish an illustrated brochure, on breast cancer surgery by Hanaoka. It was only two months after he enrolled at the school. Although details remain unknown as to why Akaishi was so active in publishing the brochure, it is likely that he was impressed by the skillful breast cancer surgeries done by Hanaoka and determined to prevail upon him to share information about them among his colleagues. On the request of Akaishi, however, Hanaoka responded with neither "Yes" nor "No" because Hanaoka thought that it was impossible to accurately describe his diverse medical practices. Although Akaishi failed to obtain Hanaoka's permission to publish it, he tried to move further for the publication. He showed a manuscript containing Akaishi's preface and illustrations of 13 cases of breast cancer surgery to Yuya Kishi (1734-1813), asking him to write a foreword to the manuscript. Kishi was a scholar of Chinese literature of the Wakayama domain and a close friend of Hanaoka. A manuscript tentatively titled "Nyugan Zufu" is most likely the manuscript that Akaishi showed to Kishi, and the preface by Akaishi and the foreword by Kishi from other manuscripts elucidated the situation of the unirealized publication of the brochure.

The health and welfare of the Japanese people were of a lower standard compared to other developed countries at the end of the World War II in 1945. Crawford F. Sams, Chief, the Public Health and Welfare Section of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers thought that medical care in a wartom country could be improved not by building new hospitals and providing more medical equipment, but through professional education and training. He founded the Council on Medical Education to reform the Japanese medical education. The Council shaped Japanese medical education by establishing the standards for medical school education and initiating internship and a national medical licensure examination. In the early 1950s, the Unitarian Service Committee Medical Mission was invited to teach to medical school professors and students American medicine. This medical mission was also a contribution of the Public Health and Welfare Section to Japanese medical education. This article explores how Public Health and Welfare Section played vital roles in transforming Japanese medical education and postgraduate training during the occupation.