Kubo Inokichi

Kubo Inokichi in 1934

Kubo Inokichi ( Japanese 久保 猪 之 吉 , also Ino Kubo ; born December 26, 1874 in Nihonmatsu , Fukushima Prefecture , Japan; † November 12, 1939 in Tokyo ) was a pioneer of ear, nose and throat medicine (Oto-Rhino-Laryngology ) and at the same time a renowned poet ( Waka , Haiku ).

Life

Soon after entering high school in 1891, his interest in classical Japanese poetry grew, which he studied under the guidance of Ochiai Naobumi. In 1896 he began studying medicine at the Tokyo Imperial University School of Medicine 東京 帝国 大学 医科大学 Tokyo Teikoku Daigaku Ika Daigaku . In 1898 he published tanka poems for the first time in the nationally distributed Yomiuri newspaper and founded the literary group Ikazuchi-kai . After completing his studies in 1901, he initially worked as an assistant to Professor Okada Waichirō. He married in May 1903 and moved to Freiburg (Breisgau) the following month , where he deepened his expertise in ear, nose and throat medicine under the pioneer of bronchoscopy Gustav Killian .

Professor Kubo (1st row, 7th from left) and the Department of Otorhinolaryngology in 1920

Immediately after his return to Japan, he was appointed professor at the Fukuoka Medical School ( 京都帝国大学 福岡 医科大学 , Kyōto teikokudaigaku Fukuoka ikadaigaku ) in January 1907 . The following month he founded the Department of Ear, Nose and Throat Medicine. In August he used a bronchoscope to remove a foreign body from the windpipe in Japan for the first time . In 1911, the Fukuoka Medical School , which had been run as a branch school of the University of Kyoto , became independent as the "Imperial University of Kyushu Medical School" ( 九州帝国大学 医科大学 , Kyūshū teikokudaigaku ikadaigaku ). With the establishment of further faculties in 1911, she went to the Medical Faculty of the Imperial University of Kyūshū .

Kubo Inokichi's wife Yorie Yorie よ り 江 came from Matsuyama , where she was strongly influenced by the famous poet Natsume Sōseki at a young age . Her husband also turned to this form of poetry. Both maintained a salon in Fukuoka, which attracted writers not only from Kyushu. In 1913 they founded the literary magazine ENIGMA ( エ ニ グ マ ). In 1922 Inokichi published haiku poems for the first time in the renowned haiku magazine Hototogisu (= Gackelkuckuck). One of his medicine students, Soda Kyōsuke, took part in these activities and, after becoming director of a clinic in Kokura , stimulated the northeastern region of Kyushu through a similar literary salon.

At the same time, Kubo made an international name for himself in the field of ear, nose and throat medicine. In 1913 he made a six-month trip to Europe, where he took part in the 1st International Congress for Oto-Rhino-Laryngology in Copenhagen as the representative of Japan. A second trip to Europe followed in 1924. The festschrift for his sixtieth birthday, written ten years later by “his foreign friends”, contains a long list of renowned colleagues from all over the world. In the same year he received the highest French order, the Légion d'Honneur ( Legion of Honor ). In February 1935 he was retired. He then worked as a consultant in the Seiroka Hospital (St. Luke's Hospital) in Tokyo, founded in 1902 by the American missionary doctor Rudolph Bolling Teusler, but died in 1939 and was buried in the Aoyama cemetery . His wife, Yoshie, followed him a year and a half later at the age of 57.

Kubo Museum (Faculty of Medicine, Kyushu University, Fukuoka)

Kubo Museum, sign at the entrance

Kubo Inokichi published 530 articles in Japanese and 42 in Western languages, as well as a number of writings on the history of medicine that was very close to his heart. There are also 172 papers of a non-medical nature. In 1928 Inokichi was elected a member of the Leopoldina learned society .

Kubo Museum

On the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the Department of Ear, Nose and Throat Medicine, students of Kubo Inokichi donated the “Kubo Museum” ( Kubo Kinenkan ) in 1927 . The two-story building was built on the site of the Medical Faculty of Kyūshū University in a mixed Japanese-Western style. He recorded the considerable number of devices, books, manuscripts, and paintings from all areas of Western and Eastern medicine that Kubo had collected himself or had received from colleagues in all countries. This was the first Japanese museum dedicated to the history of medicine. After Kubo's death, part of his estate and materials relating to the history of the Department of Ear, Nose and Throat Medicine were added.

Furthermore, Kubo Street ( 久保 通 , Kubo-dōri ) named after him is located on the university's medical campus .

literature

• Festschrift Ino. Kubo. Dedicated by his foreign friends on his 60th birthday (December 26, 1934) . Tokyo: The Herald Press, 1934 (378 pp.).
• Celebration and lectures on December 1st and 2nd, 1934 on the occasion of the 60th birthday of Prof. Dr. Ino Kubo Director of the Ear, Nose and Throat Clinic at the Imperial Kyushu University in Fukuoka . Fukuoka, 1934. (95 pp.)
• Sao Yūko: Kubo Inochiki . In: Kindaibungaku-kenkyū sōsho, Vol. 46, pp. 125-198, Shōwa Women's University, Tokyo, 1977.
• Wolfgang Michel: Kubo Memorial Building - The First Japanese Museum for Medical History. 100 Anniversary Memorial Book . Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, May 2009, pp. 143-149. (PDF Kyushu University Institutional Repository; 1.2 MB) (Japanese)

Web links

• Nishi-Nippon City Bank: biography (Japanese)
• Nihonmatsu City: biography

Individual evidence

1. ↑ There are numerous Japanese descriptions of Kubo's life. The most detailed so far is that of Y. Sao.
2. ↑ Hans Killian : Gustav Killian his life - his work. Dustri-Verlag, Remscheid-Lennep (1958), p. 131
3. ↑ Teusler, a cousin of Woodrow Wilson's wife, had done a great job raising the standard of nursing education in Japan. Obituary in the British Medical Journal , Sept. 8, 1934.
4. ↑ More about the building and the collection at Michel (2009)
5. ↑ キ ャ ン パ ス 風景 . Kyushu University, accessed May 29, 2011 (Japanese). 

Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . Thus Kubo is the family name, Inokichi the first name.