Until 100 years ago Japan was a hermit nation. Commodore Perry, an American naval officer, visited the island and negotiated terms for trade and commerce in July 1853. A treaty was concluded the next year, and thus an insular nation was awakened from three centuries of slumber and no longer left in seclusion.
During the latter half of the past century a number of scientists and educators from Europe and the United States were invited to establish institutions of higher learning, and many young students came under the influence of these scholars. Toward the close of the 19th century Germany was prominent in the fields of medical research and clinical investigation. Intellectually-minded young men attended medical centers in Germany, some at Japanese Government expense and some at personal expense.
Professor Waichiro Okada (1864-1938) also spent several years in clinics in Germany and Austria. When he returned to Japan in 1899 he organized the Department of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology in an institution which is the present Tokyo University. Okada was promoted to professorship in 1903. This was the first time in the medical history of Japan that a chair of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology was established in a government-supported university.
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