Tomo Inouye (born 1870) was a Japanese medical doctor, trained at the

University of Michigan Medical School Michigan Medicine (University of Michigan Health System or UMHS before 2017) is the wholly owned academic medical center of the University of Michigan, a public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Michigan Medicine includes the Universi ...

. She was the founder of the Japanese Medical Women's Society.

Early life

Inouye was born in

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 ...

. Inouye attended a Methodist girls' school in

Nagasaki is the capital and the largest city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. It became the sole port used for trade with the Portuguese and Dutch during the 16th through 19th centuries. The Hidden Christian Sites in the ...

, Japan.

Education

Inouye began to study

homeopathic medicine Homeopathy or homoeopathy is a pseudoscientific system of alternative medicine. It was conceived in 1796 by the German physician Samuel Hahnemann. Its practitioners, called homeopaths, believe that a substance that causes symptoms of a dise ...

with an American doctor, Mary A. Gault, who was married to a Japanese man and who ran a clinic at Nagasaki."Tomo Inouye M. D."
''Medical Era'' (May 1898): 79. She is said to have chosen medicine because she was too short to qualify for nurses' training. In 1898, Inouye graduated from the Cleveland Homeopathic Medical College. She was the only woman in a group of eight Japanese students enrolled at the University of Michigan in 1900. She earned her medical degree there in 1901, and received her Japanese medical license in 1903.

Career

Inouye was a delegate to the fourth world conference of the

Woman's Christian Temperance Union The Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) is an international temperance organization, originating among women in the United States Prohibition movement. It was among the first organizations of women devoted to social reform with a program th ...

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

in 1897. She returned to Japan after medical school, and was a practicing physician in

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

. She was also appointed a medical inspector for school girls in Tokyo, and taught hygiene and health classes. She was active with the

YWCA The Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) is a nonprofit organization with a focus on empowerment, leadership, and rights of women, young women, and girls in more than 100 countries. The World office is currently based in Geneva, Swi ...

of Japan. In 1920, she revisited her alma mater with

Ida Kahn Ida Kahn (; December 6, 1873—November 9, 1931), born Kang Cheng (), was a Chinese medical doctor who, along with Mary Stone, operated dispensaries and hospitals in China from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century. Kahn was most k ...

, the school's first Chinese woman graduate. Both women were in the United States to attend the International Conference of Women Physicians in New York City in 1919. Tomo Inouye founded the Japanese Medical Women's Society, and was a founding member and at-large board member of the Medical Women's International Society (MWIA) in 1919. In 1923, she headed a relief project of women physicians responding to the

1923 Great Kantō earthquake The struck the Kantō Plain on the main Japanese island of Honshū at 11:58:44 JST (02:58:44 UTC) on Saturday, September 1, 1923. Varied accounts indicate the duration of the earthquake was between four and ten minutes. Extensive firestorms an ...

Personal life

Inouye lived through

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, though her home and belongings were destroyed: "All my pictures, books, instruments, specimens, and everything were burned to the ground through that terrible bomb," she wrote to Michigan friends in 1948. "Therefore I have nothing remained, no keepsake, and made homeless, no relative to look after me, separated from all my friends."''University of Michigan History''
(2014): 265.

References

External links

A full-length portrait of Tomo Inouye
from the University of Michigan Library's online exhibit
"Michigan's Story: The History of Race at U-M"A photo of Tomo Inouye later in life
in the collection of the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...

A photograph of Tomo Inouye
in the collection of the Oregon Health and Science University Digital Commons {{DEFAULTSORT:Inouye, Tomo 1870 births University of Michigan Medical School alumni Japanese women physicians Year of death missing Woman's Christian Temperance Union people