Nagata Tokuhon practised at a period when medicine itself was being rebuilt on new foundations.
The record lists Nagata Tokuhon as Japanese physician.
Nagata Tokuhon was born at Mikawa Province in 1513. His recorded nationality is Japan.
Dissection returned in this period and overturned inherited anatomy, which had been copied without checking for centuries.
Clinical knowledge is accumulated slowly and revised often, usually at some cost.
That the work was done from Japan matters: hospitals, training and research funding are unevenly distributed, and they decide which questions can be asked.
Nagata Tokuhon died in 1630, aged 117. What survives is the change in practice, which is how a medical life is actually measured.
