Waksman: A Foreigner Who Visited the Juku

2016/02/01

On December 20, 1952, a ceremony commemorating the 100th anniversary of the birth of Dr. Shibasaburo Kitasato was held at the Yomiuri Auditorium. The event was organized by the Dr. Kitasato Centenary Memorial Association and supported by Keio University, the Kitasato Institute, and the Yomiuri Shimbun. Following Taichi Kitajima, chairman of the memorial association and former Dean of the School of Medicine and former Director of the Kitasato Institute, President Kōji Ushioda delivered a formal address.

Ushioda mentioned that Yukichi Fukuzawa provided research assistance to Dr. Kitasato when the Japanese academic community treated him coldly after his return from studying in Germany, and that Dr. Kitasato made dedicated efforts when establishing the Department of Medicine at Keio University. He then shared the following "little-known heartwarming story."

"When the Department of Medicine was finally established, Dr. Kitasato himself and those who came with him from the Kitasato Institute made an agreement to work without compensation for the time being. (...) Even when the authorities of Keio University at the time tried to get them to accept payment, these individuals declined their salaries for a considerable period. (...) I am not speaking of the amount of the allowance. I am deeply moved by the spirit of Dr. Kitasato and his disciples at the time of the founding, working without pay until the Department of Medicine was on track. This is something that only those of great courage can do. I wish to announce to the world from this platform that the current development of the Keio University School of Medicine is built upon the foundation of the courageous spirit of the Doctor and his disciples (...)"

This ceremony attracted public attention, with various newspapers reporting on it. This was because Dr. Waksman, who had just been awarded the Nobel Prize, was invited to Japan for this ceremony. At the commemorative academic lecture meeting held following the ceremony, Chujiro Nishino, former professor of internal medicine and director of the National Tokyo Second Hospital (now Tokyo Medical Center), gave a lecture titled "Dr. Kitasato and Tuberculosis in Japan," followed by Dr. Waksman's lecture titled "Changing Concepts in Microbiology."

Waksman was a bacteriologist who won the Nobel Prize for his achievement in discovering streptomycin, which is effective against tuberculosis. Until then, tuberculosis, for which there was no effective treatment, was truly an incurable disease in Japan during and immediately after the war, coupled with deteriorating nutritional conditions. According to statistical data from 1947, 146,000 people died from tuberculosis. However, streptomycin, discovered in 1943, was introduced to Japan in 1949, and domestic production began in 1950. Its effect was revolutionary; by 1952, the number of deaths had been halved, and the Ministry of Health and Welfare had just held a ceremony commemorating the halving of tuberculosis deaths.

Waksman's Nobel Prize win was in the very year of his visit to Japan, and the award ceremony in Stockholm was on December 10. Because of this, there has been a tendency to emphasize that his visit to Japan was on his way back from the Nobel Prize ceremony. However, the decision for his visit was actually made before the Nobel Prize was decided. Taichi Kitajima and Dean of the School of Medicine Katsuma Abe had invited him, and Yoshio Kusama, a professor of hygiene who had studied medical sciences at Stanford University, had traveled to the United States to personally request his attendance, which was readily accepted.

Waksman himself, in his autobiography "My Life with the Microbes," wrote about when the Nobel Prize was decided: "Several months ago, I had promised to go to Japan in December to give a commemorative lecture for the 100th anniversary of the birth of the great Japanese bacteriologist Shibasaburo Kitasato. It was hardly possible to cancel that trip now." He recorded that he decided to travel around the world eastward from the United States to Stockholm and then to Tokyo.

Waksman's days in Japan were reported in particular detail by the Yomiuri Shimbun, which sponsored the commemorative ceremony. He arrived at Haneda Airport on the night of December 16 and was met by Zenjiro Kitasato, Director of the Kitasato Institute, and Katsuma Abe, Dean of the School of Medicine. He told reporters that he knew many Japanese people and had wanted to come to Japan, and that he had "received instruction regarding the discovery of Salvarsan from Professor (Sahachiro) Hata of the Department of Bacteriology at Keio University."

On the 17th, after visiting the Juku in Mita, he visited the Kitasato Institute in Shirokane and inspected the laboratory of Toju Hata, the son of Sahachiro Hata. Then, after visiting the Koch-Kitasato Shrine within the institute, he headed to the School of Medicine.

On the 18th, he met with the Emperor at the Imperial Palace and told reporters, "I have met heads of state of various countries, but this is the first time I have been able to have such an academic conversation." Incidentally, on the 24th, he visited Prince Takahito Mikasa. The conversation between the Jewish doctor and the Prince turned to the Bible, and he later recalled, "I was greatly surprised to find that he (the Prince) was studying Hebrew and reading the Old Testament in its original language."

The 20th was the commemorative ceremony mentioned at the beginning, and a commemorative dinner was also held at the Imperial Hotel.

The following day, the 21st, he visited patients who had recovered thanks to streptomycin. He said, "I receive so much gratitude (through letters, etc.) from many people that I cannot even reply to them all. Since I cannot visit each of the two million tuberculosis patients in Japan, I am visiting as their representative."

In addition to the lecture meeting after the commemorative ceremony, he gave lectures in Sendai (23rd), Tokyo (27th), Kyoto (January 3rd), Osaka (4th), and Nagoya (5th), with the cooperation of local Mita-kai.

At the lecture meetings in various locations, just as at the commemorative lecture meeting, lectures on the achievements of Shibasaburo Kitasato were given alongside Waksman's lectures. Kitasato's mentor, Robert Koch, was the discoverer of the tubercle bacillus, and Kitasato also conducted research under Koch on the tuberculin he created. After returning to Japan, with the support of Yukichi Fukuzawa, Kitasato opened the Yojoen to treat tuberculosis patients and established the Japanese Association for Tuberculosis to become a central figure in the tuberculosis prevention movement. The audience at the lectures was exposed to the history of research, prevention, and treatment of tuberculosis, and the achievements of the mentor-disciple relationship between Koch and Kitasato, along with Waksman's great work.

On January 6, the day before his departure from Japan, an honorary doctorate conferral ceremony was held in the Memorial Room of the University Library on the Mita Hilltop Square.

The Juku had already established regulations for conferring honorary doctoral degrees on foreign scholars who had made significant contributions to the Juku and the Japanese academic community, and the first one was awarded to Waksman.

Considering the progress of tuberculosis research by Koch, Kitasato, and Waksman mentioned earlier, there could be no one more suitable as the first recipient of an honorary doctorate from the Juku. Furthermore, Waksman himself later recalled this visit to Japan, stating that the new paths for treating infectious diseases were opened first by the antitoxin therapy of Behring and Kitasato, followed by the chemotherapy of Ehrlich and Hata, and then by their own antibiotics. In addition, President Ushioda stated in the conclusion of his congratulatory address, "It is a matter of great joy that this Juku has decided to confer its first honorary doctorate title upon Dr. Waksman, a scholar from Rutgers University, which has a particularly deep relationship with the Juku."

Jinzaburo Obata, whose character Yukichi Fukuzawa respected and for whose future he had high expectations, went to the United States in 1871, fell ill, and died in 1873 at the young age of 29. He is buried in the Willow Grove Cemetery adjacent to Rutgers University in New Brunswick.

Even after returning home, Waksman did not forget that Ushioda was concerned about the state of Jinzaburo's grave. He not only investigated the current state of the grave and took photographs of it but also found the obituary published in the local newspaper and materials regarding Japanese international students at the time. At the end of February, he sent the results of his investigation to Eiichi Kiyooka, who had been present at the conferral ceremony. It turns out that Waksman was the first person after the war to investigate the footsteps of Yukichi Fukuzawa's disciples overseas.

Waksman often accompanied people related to the School of Medicine, including Daizo Ushiba, a bacteriologist who served as an interpreter at each lecture. Toshio Kato of the Department of Radiology, who served as a secretary, wrote about when he guided Waksman through the School of Medicine.

"At that time, the School of Medicine still bore the scars of the war. On cold days at the end of December, both patients and doctors had no heating facilities and warmed themselves by putting charcoal in small earthen braziers. Professor Waksman, who inspected each laboratory, was deeply pained to see scholars living with rabbits and mice in these dilapidated laboratories compared to the well-equipped laboratories in the United States. Toward the end of his scheduled three-week stay, on the way to my home, Dr. Waksman suggested donating half of the royalties for streptomycin in Japan to poor Japanese scholars."

This was the catalyst for the establishment of the Waksman Foundation of Japan.

Until the foundation was established, there were difficult matters such as negotiations with manufacturing companies, the Ministry of Finance, and the Ministry of Health and Welfare. Kato, who was entrusted with full authority, worked tenaciously on the negotiations in the inconvenient environment of using part of a corridor in the annex as an office, and finally managed to establish it in November 1957. Then, at the end of March the following year, a ceremony commemorating the establishment of the foundation was held with Waksman invited, and 24 research grants and one study abroad grant were awarded. Incidentally, the honorary patron is Prince Mikasa, with whom Waksman had discussed Hebrew history during his first visit to Japan.

The foundation office, a single-story concrete block building constructed in 1958 between the Building for Preventive Medicine and Public Health and the Kitasato Library in Shinanomachi, was demolished last year. However, even today, when the patent has expired, research grants are still being provided to promising researchers, honoring Waksman's intentions. This can be said to be thanks to the academic debt owed to Dr. Kitasato and the spirit of his disciples who held the 100th anniversary ceremony even while still in the process of reconstruction.

Finally, I must mention the Nobel Prize win of Satoshi Omura of the Kitasato Institute last year. It was the first award for the discovery of antibiotics from actinomycetes in soil since Waksman. Mr. Omura studied under Toju Hata of the Kitasato Institute—whom Waksman visited during his first trip to Japan and who was conversely invited to Waksman's laboratory to conduct research for a year in 1955—and it was Mr. Omura who took over that laboratory.