Professor Harutoyo Omori was born on November 10, 1852 in Mikawa-cho, Kanda, Edo and his hometown is Kaminoyama-cho, Minamimurayama-gun, Yamagata. In October 1879, he graduated from the School of Medicine, University of Tokyo (name changed to Tokyo Imperial University in 1886). In December of the same year, he was assigned to Fukuoka Medical School upon its foundation, dedicating himself not only to the treatment of patients but also to the education of doctors and enlightenment of private physicians. In April 1885, he performed a cesarean section and tracheotomy on a baby in a state of apparent death in order to save its life. In 1886, he published 100 laparotomy cases including this cesarean section as "100 cases of resection involving the heart and abdomen," receiving the degree of Doctor of Medicine in 1891. Further, his noteworthy achievements also include regional mobile medical examinations as his work at Fukuoka Prefectural Hospital, relocation of Fukuoka Prefectural Hospital, and taking an active part in realizing the establishment of a medical university. In 1899, together with Mr. Sakichi Sato and Mr. Yoshinori Tashiro, he aided in organizing the 1st Japan Surgical Society. In 1903, the Fukuoka College of Medicine, Kyoto Imperial University (precursor of the School of Medicine, Kyushu University) was newly established with Fukuoka Prefectural Hospital as the parent organization. In April of the same year, the professor was appointed Director of the Fukuoka College of Medicine as well as Director of the affiliated hospital thereof, in addition to being a professor in the Department of Surgery. In 1904, another Department of Surgery was newly established in 1904, to which Professor Hayari Miyake was appointed, giving surgical medicine a two-department system including Professors Omori and Miyake. In 1906, he became the seventh Chairman of the Japanese Surgical Society, retiring in August due to illness. His tomb is located at Soufuku-ji in the Daitokuji branch of the Rinzai sect, where professors and medical staff visit every year. The accomplishments of the professor who founded the School of Medicine at Kyushu University have been praised and honored in the form of a statue in the Alumni Association garden of the School of Medicine. In addition, a bronze statue also stands in his hometown, Kamiyama-city, Yamagata.

Yoshihiko Maehara
(Professor and Chairman, Department of Surgery and Science, Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Kyushu University)
 

Inokichi Kubo, M.D., Ph.D. (1874～1939) was the first professor of otolaryngology at Kyushu University and was one of the pioneer otolaryngologists a great educator and had many followers.

He was also a talented writer, specializing in the Japanese TANKA poem.

Takashi Nakagawa
(Professor,Department of Otorhinolaryngology)

 

Dr. Ryukichi Inada graduated from the Tokyo Imperial University Medical School in 1900. After 2 years of study in Germany, he was inaugurated as the first professor of the Internal Medicine at Kyushu University.

In 1914, Dr. Inada discovered, for the first time, Spirochaeta icterohaemorrhagiae as the causative agent of Weil's disease and reported these findings in a paper entitled "Nihon odan shukketsusei supiroheta byoron" (Pathogenesis of Japanese hemorrhagic icteric Spirochaeta) in 1915.

This paper addressed the disease pathogenesis in a comprehensive manner, including transmissibility of Spirochaeta, routes of infection, treatment, pathology, diagnosis, treatment and prophylaxis. In 1920, Dr. Inada moved to the Tokyo Imperial University as Professor of Department of Internal Medicine. Dr. Inada received the Order of Culture (Bunka-Kunsho), the most prestigious Japanese order, in 1944. Dr. Inada died in 1950. One of the first isolates established by Dr. Inada in 1914 survives to this day and was accepted by the Subcommittee on the Taxonomy of Leptospira in 1990 as the Type Strain of Leptospira interrogans. Drs. Inada and Ido, who later became Professor of Internal Medicine at Kyushu University as a successor of Dr. Inada, were reportedly nominated for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1919 in recognition of their discovery of Spirochaeta icterohaemorrhagiae; however, since Dr. Ido died of typhus at the age of 38 before the announcement of the Nobel laureates of that year, they became ineligible for the prize.

Koichi Akashi
(Professor, Department of Medicine and Biosystemic Science (previously The First Department of Iinternal Medicine))

Katsuo Sueishi
(Professor Emeritus, Department of Pathology)

Masafumi Nakamura(Professor, Department of Surgery and Oncology(previously the First Department of Surgery))
Masao Tanaka　(President, Shimonoseki City Hospital)
Hiroshi Sato　(Administrator, Kunisaki City Hospital)

Author:Taiki Moriyama (International Medical Department(Department of Surgery and Oncology))）