Hideyo Noguchi

Hideyo Noguchi was born in 1876 in Inawashiro, Fukushima, as the son of a poor farming family.
At age one, he fell into an irori (sunken hearth), badly burning his left hand. His fingers fused and became deformed like a lump, leaving him unable to do farm work.
His mother urged him to make a living through learning, so he entered elementary school and studied hard.
Still, he endured daily bullying from classmates because of his hand.

Life was difficult, but his talent was recognized by Sakae Kobayashi, vice principal of the local higher elementary school, who encouraged him to continue his studies.
When Noguchi was in his fourth year of the advanced course, teachers and classmates raised money for his surgery, and he underwent an operation on his left hand.
It didn’t fully heal, but he was moved by the power of medicine and decided to become a doctor.
After graduating, he worked as a live-in student assistant for the doctor who operated on him, learning medical fundamentals while working.
It was during this time that he first encountered bacteriology.

After moving to Tokyo, Hideyo Noguchi obtained his medical license at the young age of 20.
However, his impaired left hand made percussion, an essential clinical skill, difficult, so he chose the path of a bacteriologist.
Aiming to work on the world stage, he worked at various research institutes in Tokyo and immersed himself in research.
Later, relying on Dr. Simon Flexner, whom he had assisted as an interpreter and guide while Noguchi worked at a research institute, he moved to the United States in 1900.

Under Dr. Simon Flexner, he threw himself into research on snake venom.
When his results were recognized, he became an assistant in pathology at the University of Pennsylvania in 1902, and in 1903 he studied in Denmark.
At the State Serum Institute, he studied serology under Dr. Madsen.
After returning to the U.S. from Denmark in 1904, he became Dr. Flexner’s chief assistant at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, and devoted himself even further to bacterial research.
People around him would ask, “When do you ever sleep?”

In 1918, he joined research on yellow fever, which was spreading across Central and South America, traveling to places such as Ecuador and Africa to investigate its cause.
Just as prevention and treatment were coming into view, Noguchi himself contracted yellow fever. Despite intensive treatment, he died at age 51.

When he moved to Tokyo to earn his medical license, he raised about 800,000 yen from mentors and acquaintances. But after repeated nights at pleasure quarters and heavy drinking, he ran out of money and was kicked out of his lodging.
Later, he even spent the 10,000,000 yen he had saved to study in the U.S. on nights out with geisha, leaving many stories that show how careless he could be with money.

One day during his indulgent period, a friend introduced him to a novel titled “Tōsei Shosei Katagi.”
It tells the story of a medical student, Nonoguchi Seisaku, who comes to Tokyo and falls into a self-indulgent life of chasing women.
Noguchi was shocked at how closely it resembled his own life, and how similar the protagonist’s name was to his former name, Seisaku Noguchi.
Not wanting people to think he was the model for the character, he changed his name from Seisaku Noguchi to Hideyo Noguchi.

There’s also a story behind how he changed his name from Seisaku Noguchi to Hideyo Noguchi, because in those days, changing your name wasn’t easy.
So he found another person named Seisaku and had him adopted into the Noguchi family living near his home.
Then, claiming it was confusing to have two people named “Seisaku Noguchi,” he petitioned to change his own name.

The Hideyo Noguchi Memorial Museum is a museum opened in 1939 to commemorate his achievements. It consists of his birthplace and an exhibition hall. The exhibits use many photos, his personal belongings, robots, and more to introduce his life and research in an easy-to-understand way. Hands-on games that families can enjoy while learning about his work are also popular.

Nanokamachi Street and Hideyo Noguchi Youth Street are retro sightseeing streets in the heart of Aizuwakamatsu City. Lined with buildings from the Meiji, Taisho, and early Showa eras, a stroll here feels like stepping back in time. The two streets connect at a right angle, and walking the full route takes about 20 minutes (Approx. 1.2 km).
Turn right at Ōmachi Yotsukado from Nanokamachi Street to continue onto Hideyo Noguchi Youth Street. A short walk south, you’ll find the former Kaio Clinic, where Noguchi underwent surgery for his hand burn as a boy. Today, it’s the Hideyo Noguchi Youth Museum. It’s a fitting starting point for the man who would later become a great doctor.