Tag: Japan
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Fugu—Japanese delicacy or death?
In Japan, fugu has been a “captain of these men of death” for generations, causing an exitus that is “rapid and violent.” There is at first numbness around the mouth, then paralysis, and, as with curare, consciousness persists until the very end. The poison interferes with the transmission of signals from nerves to muscles by…
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Sunao Tawara
Sunao Tawara was a prominent Japanese pathologist and anatomist best known for discovering in 1906 the atrioventricular node, also known as the AV node or bundle of Tawara. This small mass of specialized cardiac muscle fibers located between the atria and ventricles of the heart is a key component of the heart’s conduction system, responsible…
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Hanaoka Seishū, inventor of an early general anesthetic
Kingston BridgesLondon, United Kingdom Since time immemorial, humans have sought to alleviate illness and suffering through surgical interventions. Amputations with improvised tools took place in the Upper Paleolithic period over 30,000 years ago, and skeletal evidence of trephining has been found in excavations on several continents. Throughout the centuries, as an understanding of the human…
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The use of force in medicine
Angad TiwariIndiaMallika KhuranaJapan William Carlos Williams (1883-1963), regarded as “the most important literary doctor since Chekhov,” was an American Pulitzer prize-winning writer and poet who stands amongst the few full-time practicing physicians to have achieved literary distinction.1 He regarded art and medicine as “two parts of a whole,” and the intimate doctor-patient interface proved a…
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Red Beard: A master clinician in nineteenth century Japan
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “One of the essential qualities of the clinician is interest in humanity, for the secret of the care of the patient is in caring for the patient.”—Francis W. Peabody, M.D.1 Red Beard (or Akahige) is a film about an arrogant, inexperienced doctor who learns about caring and compassion from his chief, a…
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Quincy—A crusading doctor played by a crusading actor
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden The television series Quincy, or Quincy, M.E. [Medical examiner], aired between 1976 and 1983 in the US. One hundred forty-six episodes of this program were televised. Quincy was originally conceived as a crime drama, with the police helped by the ideas and findings of Dr. Quincy (no first name), a forensic pathologist…
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The life of a trailblazer: Ogino Ginko, one of the first female doctors in Japan
Mariel TishmaChicago, Illinois, United States Ogino Ginko was Japan’s first female doctor of Western medicine. She lived a life full of struggles, achieved a flash of fame, and then quietly retreated into history. She advocated for the rights, safety, and health of women and today should be remembered as an activist and role model to…
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Atrocities in Asia: Japan’s infamous Unit 731
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden In 1931 the Japanese army occupied the province of Manchuria in north-east China and continued to invade and occupy more of China as well as Southeast Asia and the western Pacific islands. The Japanese war machine needed the natural resources of these conquered territories in order to continue to expand its sphere…
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Hiroshima seventy-five years after the bombing
Cristóbal Berry-CabánFort Bragg, North Carolina, United States “At exactly fifteen minutes past eight in the morning on August 6, 1945, Japanese time, at the moment when the atomic bomb flashed above Hiroshima, Miss Toshiko Sasaki, a clerk in the personnel department of the East Asia Tin Works, had just sat down at her place in…