Hideyo Noguchi
| Hideyo Noguchi | |
|---|---|
Hideyo Noguchi with signature
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| Born |
November 9, 1876 Inawashiro, Fukushima, Empire of Japan |
| Died | May 21, 1928 (aged 51) Accra, Gold Coast |
| Resting place | Woodlawn Cemetery New York City, USA |
| Nationality | Japan |
| Fields | bacteriology |
| Known for |
syphilis Treponema pallidum |
Hideyo Noguchi (野口 英世 Noguchi Hideyo?, November 9, 1876 – May 21, 1928), also known as Seisaku Noguchi (野口 清作 Noguchi Seisaku?), was a prominent Japanese bacteriologist who in 1911 discovered the agent of syphilis as the cause of progressive paralytic disease.
Noguchi Hideyo was born in Inawashiro, Fukushima prefecture in 1876. When he was one and a half years old, he fell into a fireplace and suffered a burn injury on his left hand. There was no doctor in the small village, but one of the men examined the boy. "The fingers of the left hand are mostly gone," he said, "and the left arm, the left foot, and the right hand are burned; I don't know how badly."
In 1883, Noguchi entered Mitsuwa elementary school. Thanks to generous contributions from his teacher Kobayashi and his friends, he was able to receive surgery on his badly burned hand. He recovered about 70% mobility and functionality in his left hand through the operation.
Noguchi decided to become a doctor to help those in need. He apprenticed himself to Dr. Kanae Watanabe (渡部 鼎 Watanabe Kanae?), the same doctor who had performed the surgery. He entered Saisei Gakusha, which later became Nippon Medical School. He passed the examinations to practice medicine when he was twenty years old in 1897. He showed signs of great talent and was supported in his studies by Dr. Morinosuke Chiwaki. In 1898, he changed his first name to Hideyo after reading a novel about a doctor who had the same name—Seisaku—as him. The doctor in the story was intelligent like Noguchi but became lazy and ruined his life.
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