Luis de Almeida (1525–1583) was a Portuguese surgeon, merchant and missionary of the

Society of Jesus , image = Ihs-logo.svg , image_size = 175px , caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits , abbreviation = SJ , nickname = Jesuits , formation = , founders ...

in Japan. He is credited for establishing the first "western" hospital in Japan.

Life

Luis de Almeida was born in 1525 in Lisbon in a New Christian family that had converted from Judaism to Christianity. After two years of training at the prestigious

Hospital Real de Todos os Santos The Hospital Real de Todos-os-Santos (''All Saints Royal Hospital'') was a major hospital in Lisbon, Portugal. The hospital was built between 1492 and 1504 and was destroyed in the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, along with most of the city. It was never f ...

, he received surgical license in March 1546 by the Portuguese king. Afterwards he moved to Goa and from there to Macau and became involved in intra-Asian trade with some success. These activities brought him for the first time to Japan in 1552, where the era of direct and sustained Euro-Japanese contacts had begun with the Nanban trade, attracting Portuguese merchants who fulfilled the Japanese demand for silk, cotton, Chinese medicines and other goods that Japan could not produce in sufficient quantities. During his voyage to Asia he was deeply moved by the Jesuit missionaries who tended to the passengers' spiritual needs. Upon reaching Japan, he resolved to travel to Yamaguchi to meet the Jesuit father Cosme de Torres, who was in charge of the mission after Francis Xavier's departure, and from there the two kept in close contact. In 1555, during his second visit to Japan, he joined the Society of Jesus and was now looking for ways to make good use of his accumulated financial resources. His personal wealth and his continued involvement in the Sino-Japanese silk trade kept the Jesuits financially afloat and provided the funds for various charitable efforts in Japan. For example, in the year of his accession he founded an orphanage in Funai (today Ōita) in the east of the island of

Kyushu is the third-largest island of Japan's five main islands and the most southerly of the four largest islands ( i.e. excluding Okinawa). In the past, it has been known as , and . The historical regional name referred to Kyushu and its surroun ...

, because many children had lost their parents due to the fierce hegemonic struggles of the

Sengoku period The was a period in History of Japan, Japanese history of near-constant civil war and social upheaval from 1467 to 1615. The Sengoku period was initiated by the Ōnin War in 1467 which collapsed the Feudalism, feudal system of Japan under the ...

. However, because Almeida's commercial activities, the Jesuits in Japan attracted criticism from Rome for dabbling in trade. In 1556 he built a hospital in Funai with the permission of the ''

daimyō were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji era, Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast, hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and n ...

'' Ōtomo Sōrin. The construction costs (about 5000 cruzados) were covered from his fortune. As far as the letters sent to Goa and Europe show, this hospital was able to accommodate about 100 patients. Initially, Almeida was in charge of the surgical department, and internal medicine was in the hands of converted Japanese doctors, who were so successful in applying Chinese-Japanese therapies that some of them were singled out by name. After 1560, Almeida had to give up leading the hospital since an order had arrived in Japan forbidding members of the Society from providing medical practices. From that time on he became an accountant for the Jesuits, and spent 1561 proselytizing in Hakata (now part of the city of

Fukuoka is the sixth-largest city in Japan, the second-largest port city after Yokohama, and the capital city of Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan. The city is built along the shores of Hakata Bay, and has been a center of international commerce since ancie ...

), Hirado, and

Kagoshima , abbreviated to , is the capital city of Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan. Located at the southwestern tip of the island of Kyushu, Kagoshima is the largest city in the prefecture by some margin. It has been nicknamed the "Naples of the Eastern wor ...

. In 1562 he obtained the landing permit for Portuguese ships in Yokoseura, which briefly thrived as a Portuguese port before it was destroyed the next year by rival merchants. The following year he founded churches in Shimabara and Kuchinotsu. In 1565 he spent his time in the

Kansai The or the , lies in the southern-central region of Japan's main island Honshu, Honshū. The region includes the Prefectures of Japan, prefectures of Nara Prefecture, Nara, Wakayama Prefecture, Wakayama, Kyoto Prefecture, Kyoto, Osaka Prefectur ...

area, leaving descriptions of a

Japanese tea ceremony The Japanese tea ceremony (known as or ) is a Japanese cultural activity involving the ceremonial preparation and presentation of , powdered green tea, the procedure of which is called . While in the West it is known as "tea ceremony", it is se ...

he witnessed in Sakai and of the magnificent temples of

Nara The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is an " independent federal agency of the United States government within the executive branch", charged with the preservation and documentation of government and historical records. It i ...

. He did not fully abandon medicine, as he still helped in the Funai hospital, cared for other Jesuit fathers, and administered medicine for Japanese ''damiyō'' on occasion. After years of tireless efforts in the Japanese mission, Almeida was ordained a priest in

Macau Macau or Macao (; ; ; ), officially the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (MSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China in the western Pearl River Delta by the South China Sea. With a pop ...

in 1580. Upon returning to Japan, he was made

Superior Superior may refer to: *Superior (hierarchy), something which is higher in a hierarchical structure of any kind Places *Superior (proposed U.S. state), an unsuccessful proposal for the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to form a separate state *Lake ...

of Amakusa, which had become Christianized through his efforts. He died three years later in Kawachiura (河内浦; now part of Amakusa). The hospital he built in Funai was destroyed in 1587 by troops from

Satsuma Satsuma may refer to: * Satsuma (fruit), a citrus fruit * ''Satsuma'' (gastropod), a genus of land snails Places Japan * Satsuma, Kagoshima, a Japanese town * Satsuma District, Kagoshima, a district in Kagoshima Prefecture * Satsuma Domain, a sout ...

.Michel 2001, p. 6.

Notes

Sources

* * * * Michel, Wolfgang (1993).
Frühe westliche Beobachtungen zur Akupunktur und Moxibustion
. In: ''Sudhoffs Archiv für Geschichte der Medizin und der Naturwissenschaften.'' 77 (2): 194–222. * Michel, Wolfgang (2001).
On the Reception of Western Medicine in Seventeenth Century Japan
. In: Yoshida Tadashi / Fukase Yasuaki(ed.), ''Higashi to nishi no iryôbunka'' edicine and Culture in East and West Kyôto: Shibunkaku Publisher. . pp. 3-17. * {{DEFAULTSORT:Almeida, Luis de 1525 births 1583 deaths 16th-century Portuguese Jesuits 16th-century Portuguese physicians 16th-century surgeons Jesuit missionaries in Japan Clergy from Lisbon Portuguese expatriates in Japan Portuguese merchants Portuguese people of Jewish descent Portuguese Roman Catholic missionaries Portuguese surgeons