Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 November 1908 — MEDICAL EDUCATION IN JAPAN. [ARTICLE]

MEDICAL EDUCATION IN JAPAN.

Xnowledge of the Healing Art Due to a Dutch Book. The first Western knowledge in trocuced into the Japanese Emplrt was through a Dutch textbook of anatomy, which came into the hands ot i Japanese physician about the year 1771. After months of study, this physician and three friends numisiied r good translation of the book, it ' sught them that their former leading had been wrong. Ou looking nrs xt the illustrations in the boo!;, they iissected the body of a criminal in order to find opt who was right—the? >r the teachings of the Dutch book. In 1868, the Imperial Universltj was established, with an excellent medical school, In charge of -Germ a t teachers, and a four years' courwhich admitted just 100 students t< each course. These who prepare foi the medical work also take German is a language, since it is the medicai ;anguage of Japan. Today all the teachers in the Imerial University are Japanese, wit) he exception of two honorary professors, who arg German. After th' itudent receives his degree—at th nd of the four years—he s allowee to practice wnthout a further examination, and so much are physicians ii demand that minor schools of medi ine nave been established, the stud mts of which are allowed to prac ice by obtaining a license after passng an examination.