was a Japanese physician, who treated

leprosy Leprosy, also known as Hansen's disease (HD), is a long-term infection by the bacteria ''Mycobacterium leprae'' or ''Mycobacterium lepromatosis''. Infection can lead to damage of the nerves, respiratory tract, skin, and eyes. This nerve damag ...

patients and studied leprosy. He worked at

Kikuchi Keifuen Sanatorium Kikuchi Keifuen Sanatorium or National Sanatorium Kikuchi Keifuen is a sanatorium for leprosy patients or ex-leprosy patients at Kohshi-shi, Kumamoto-ken, Japan founded in 1909. The mean age of residents (ex-patients) is about eighty. History Ba ...

and

Losheng Sanatorium Losheng Sanatorium () is a sanatorium for lepers in Xinzhuang District, New Taipei, Taiwan. ''Losheng'' means "happy life". The building was constructed in the 1930s during the Taiwan under Japanese rule, Japanese colonial period. There were heat ...

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

, and Tohoku Shinseien Sanatorium in

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

and studied

chaulmoogra oil ''Hydnocarpus wightianus'' or chaulmoogra is a tree in the Achariaceae family. ''Hydnocarpus wightiana'' seed oil has been widely used in traditional Indian medicine, especially in Ayurveda, and in Chinese traditional medicine for the treatmen ...

Life

He was born in

Hiroshima is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture in Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 1,199,391. The gross domestic product (GDP) in Greater Hiroshima, Hiroshima Urban Employment Area, was US$61.3 billion as of 2010. Kazumi Matsui h ...

Prefecture in 1892 and studied medicine at Nagasaki Medical School,

Nagasaki University is a national university of Japan. Its nickname is ''Chōdai'' (). The main campus is located in Bunkyo-machi, Nagasaki City, Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan. History Nagasaki University was established in 1949 by incorporating several national ...

. In 1919, he worked at Kyushu Sanatorium

and studied chaulmoogra oil. He obtained Ph.D. from Kyoto University in 1930 and became the first director of national Taiwan Sanatorium, now called Losheng Sanatorium. He intensively studied leprosy patients there. New patients were hospitalized but healed patients were discharged. In 1946 he returned to Japan but lost valuable data during repatriation. In 1947 he worked at Tohoku Shinseien Sanatorium and became its director in 1948. He retired in 1965.

Achievements

*''The beneficial effects of chaulmoogra oil'' (Report 1–5) (1930) *''The history and distribution of leprosy in Formosa'' (1940) Int J Leprosy 8,3,345. *''The treatments of leprosy at the present time'' (1939). A review of 30 pages, presented as a special lecture at the 13th Congress of the Japanese leprosy Association at

Sendai is the capital Cities of Japan, city of Miyagi Prefecture, the largest city in the Tōhoku region. , the city had a population of 1,091,407 in 525,828 households, and is one of Japan's 20 Cities designated by government ordinance of Japan, desig ...

. *''50 years of the Japanese leprosy association from the viewpoint of leprosy control'' (1977) Jpn J Leprosy 46:168–170.

Chaulmoogra oil

''Review of treatments of leprosy, especially on chaulmoogra oil''. He made a special lecture on this title at the 13th Congress of the Japanese Association of Leprosy in 1939 at

. His review included treatments of leprosy with gold, silver, cupper, arsenics, iodine, timol, pigments, nonspecific immune therapies, sulfon drugs, vitamine, bacterial toxins, serum therapies, nutritional therapies; especially chaulmoogra oil. On sulphon-amids, he tested Therapol (paraamino-benzolsulfon amid) and found it was effective in 55.6% (10 cases) out of 18 cases. However, he concluded that with Therapol only, the sulphon-amids could not be expected as treatment of leprosy. On chaulmoogra oil, he reported it was effective in 30% in the Kyushu Sanatorium (he studied it between 1919 and 1930) and in 56.6% in Formosa (data between 1930 and 1939), while Hayashi Y. reported that it was effective in 50–80% of cases in the Zenshoen Hospital,

Tama Zenshoen Sanatorium Tama Zenshōen Sanatorium, or National Sanatorium Tama Zenshōen, is a sanatorium for leprosy or ex-leprosy patients situated in Higashimurayama, Tokyo, Japan starting in 1909. History Background The Japanese Government promulgated the first lepro ...

. He concluded that chaulmoogra oil was the only hopeful treatment for patients whose leprosy was not severe, and the mechanism was the activation of the immune system by stimulating the reticulo-endothelial system or lymphatic system. This was also the conclusion of his reports for Ph.D. in 1930.

Honors

*November 1965: The

Order of the Rising Sun The is a Japanese order, established in 1875 by Emperor Meiji. The Order was the first national decoration awarded by the Japanese government, created on 10 April 1875 by decree of the Council of State. The badge features rays of sunlight ...

, Second Class.

Healed, discharged patients at Tohoku Shinseien Sanatorium

Jinjutsu wo Mattou Seshi Hito The history of Dr. Kamikawa Yutaka (1970) ed. Mamoru Uchida, Tohoku Shinseien

References

*''Dr. Yutaka Kamikawa, a humanitarian physician'' (1970) published by Tohoku Shinseien. *''40th year memorial book of Tohoku Shin-seien'' (1979) Tohoku Shinsei-en.

Footnotes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kamikawa Yutaka Japanese leprologists 1892 births 2001 deaths