Nationality Japanese | Field Pathology | |
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Institutions Tokyo Imperial University Alma mater Tokyo Imperial University Died 2 March 1930, Tokyo, Japan Similar Juichi Yamagiwa, Kenichi Endō, Kitasato Shibasaburō, Tokugawa Ieyasu | ||
Yamagiwa Katsusaburō (山極 勝三郎, 23 February 1863 - 2 March 1930) was a Japanese pathologist who carried out pioneering work into the causes of cancer. He was the first to prove chemical carcinogenesis.
Contents
He was the Nobel Prize Nominee in 7 nominations.
Life
Yamagiwa was born in Ueda, Nagano, the third son of the feudal retainer of the Ueda Domain in Shinano Province. He became the adopted son-in-law of Yoshiya Yamagiwa, a physician in Katsuya, Tokyo, and took the surname Yamagiwa. He completed his MD in 1888 from Imperial University of Tokyo. He was appointed as a professor at the Medical School, Imperial University of Tokyo and published his landmark work, Byōri Sōron Kōgi, in 1895.
Yamagiwa did all he could for the promotion of cancer research in Japan. In 1907 Cancer Science, peer-reviewed medical journal covering research in oncology, was first issued by him. In addition, he and his colleagues found the Japanese Foundation for Cancer Research in 1908.
He died in Tokyo of pneumonia in 1930 at the age of 67.
Contribution
In a series of experiments conducted in 1915, Yamagiwa and his assistant Kōichi Ichikawa (1888 – 1948) induced squamous cell carcinomas on the ears of rabbits using coal tar, demonstrating the latter's carcinogenic properties.
Missed out on Nobel Prize
The 1926 Nobel Prize went to Johannes Andreas Grib Fibiger, for his discovery of Spiroptera carcinoma, a microbial parasite which Fibiger claimed was the cause of cancer. This "finding" was discredited by other scientists shortly thereafter. Two years later, Katsusaburo Yamagiwa successfully induced squamous cell carcinoma by painting crude coal tar on the inner surface of rabbits' ears. Yamagiwa's work has become the primary basis for this line of research. Because of this, some people consider Fibiger's Nobel Prize to be undeserved, particularly because Yamagiwa never received the prize for his work.
In Japan, some documents pointed out to the Nobel committee claim that they made an error due to their white supremacy beliefs. In 1966, the former committee member Folke Henschen strongly advocated that Dr. Yamagiwa deserved the Nobel Prize, but unfortunately it was not realised.
Recognition
Yamagiwa and Ichikawa shared the Japan Academy Prize in 1919 for their work.
Encyclopædia Britannica's guide to Nobel Prizes in cancer research mentions Yamagiwa's work as a milestone, without mentioning Fibiger.