Ōyama Sutematsu is remembered in medicine for work that altered practice rather than merely argument.
The record lists Ōyama Sutematsu as Japanese socialite, first Japanese female college student studied in the US, advocate of education for licensed medical nurse and higher education for girls in 1900s Japan.
Ōyama Sutematsu was born at Aizuwakamatsu in 1860. Her recorded nationality is Tokugawa shogunate. She trained at Vassar College and Hillhouse High School.
Anaesthesia, antisepsis and germ theory arrived within fifty years and made modern surgery possible for the first time.
Her posts were held at Tsuda University.
Most medical progress is invisible: it shows up as an illness that no longer kills anyone.
That the work was done from Tokugawa shogunate matters: hospitals, training and research funding are unevenly distributed, and they decide which questions can be asked.
Ōyama Sutematsu died in 1919, aged 59. What survives is the change in practice, which is how a medical life is actually measured.
Achievements
- Held posts at Tsuda University
