MANY WOMEN DOCTORS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 753, 28 August 1929, Page 15

MANY WOMEN DOCTORS

JAPAN MAKES GREAT PROGRESS OVER 1.500 AT WORK la ISSS, the first Japanese woman graduated in medicine; there are now 1.500 women doctors in Japan. The story of the medical education of women in Japan is given by Dr. Yayoi Yoshioka, president of the women’s medical college in Tokyo, in a book reviewed by “The Vote.*' It is evidently full of interest to those who follow the uphill struggle of women the world over toward emancipation and the right to follow a chosen career. Dr. Yayoi Yoshioka says that in IS6S a Japanese woman named Ginko Ogino, appalled by the gynaecological treatment of women in Japanese hospitals, sought admission to the Imperial Government medical school. Permission was withheld until ISB4, during which interval Ginko Ogino studied medicine so diligently that when she was finally admitted she passed the examinatiion after one year’s work, and in ISSS became the first woman doctor in Japan. In 1575 Tai Hasegawa, the first Japanese to study medicine in Europe after the revolution of IS6S, established a co-educational medical institution in Tokyo. Mrs. Yayoi Yoshioka, who graduated at this college in 1892, writes:—“ln those days, rigid feudalists codes held sway, and therefore the discipline of the school was deplorable. Accordingly, in 1900 the school did not permit women to matriculate. The girl students who were refused admittance to the school then asked me to establish a women’s medi-

cal school. I felt it my duty to help them, and founded my medical school in a room in my dispensary, to which were admitted only four girl students. This is the origin of the Tokyo Women’s Medical College.*' One year's preparatory and four years’ medical study comprise the course in Dr. Yoshioka’s medical college. East year 807 students were enrolled. One thousand two hundred and fortyseven medical women have graduated from the school. Dr. Yayoi Yoshioka says:—“There are about 1,500 women doctors in Japan. They work not only in Japan proper, but iu Formosa, Korea, Hokkaido. SaghaMen. China. U.S.A.. and other countries. They not only practise medicine, bu: some are internes of hospitals, and work in Government service. Some also work in factories and in relief work, while yet others are school physicians of the many primary* schools and girls’ high schools throughout the empire. We think that our efforts toward admitting Chinese women to our college will further good relations between Japan and China.”