Igakuhakushi

A few days after the great Dr. Hideyo Noguchi died in Africa (TIME, May 28) under the hot sun of northeastern Japan a woman was spading her wheat fields. Her hands were squarish; the palms rough, the backs faintly ridged with thin veins. Her face, rugged and serene, showed her 50 odd years.

Over the fields a stranger approached. She shaded her eyes with a hand and saw that he wore a black frock coat. His walk was diffident as well as awkward. She waited for him to come close. And her eyes widened as the ill forecast of his roundabout phrases became intelligible. Her brother, the great, the famed, the honorable, the revered Dr. Hideyo Noguchi was dead. She put her hands to her face and cried. Her spade fell over into the clods.

As happened so generally in Japan, especially a generation ago, Noguchi's sister had toiled with their family to get him an education. They saw that he had his private tutors in English, French and German, that he attended the Tokyo Medical College. When he became a doctor (1897) he got an assistantship at the Tokyo General Hospital; and thereafter his way was his own. He always kept an affectionate contact with his family.

Last week Japanese women, who have endured like Noguchi's sister, became openly irate over the present condition of medicine in Japan. The country has few great physicians and surgeons. But the average of the profession is far below the U. S. average. Quackery, magic and hokus-pokus are all too prevalent.

The medical schools draw much condemnation. They give, the angry women declare, their medical degrees too facilely, particularly the highest, the Igakuhakushi. Any medical student who offers a smart thesis apparently can get the degree. Clinical experience is little required and some of those Igakuhakushi have been acting like scoundrels. They charge high fees; they write demoralizing articles on sex matters; they sign advertisements; they give testimonials. The women demand that the medical schools make their degree requirements more professional, that some organization function actively like the American Medical Association to reprove and reprimand unethical Japanese doctors.