He was born in a mountain village in Shimane, the eighth son among fourteen children of the wealthy Yamane farming family. A mischievous boy, he often played with his brother two years older, and when they went too far, it is said, they were put into an empty sake barrel and not let out for a long time. The story of his mother calling him to the storehouse to gently reason with him is still told locally.
He was taken in as the adopted heir of the Hata family of Okayama, who were relatives. The Hata were a family of doctors for generations and had only one daughter, and Sahachirō, especially bright among the Yamane sons, was chosen. Being told he could study in Okayama is thought to have been one reason the boy decided to accept the adoption.
He first studied at a pharmacy school in Okayama, but when the school was reorganized he moved to the medical department of the Third Higher Middle School, which trained doctors. His grades were excellent, and he earned the respect of other students and teachers alike. As heir to a family of doctors, he threw himself into the study of medicine.
He graduated from the medical department and became a doctor, and the same year married Chiyo, the daughter of the Hata family. He also volunteered for a year in an army unit in Tokyo, gaining experience needed as an army doctor. He then returned to Okayama as an assistant at the prefectural hospital, learning internal medicine and medical chemistry from his teachers and building his strength as a researcher.
On the recommendation of his teacher Araki Torasaburō, he went alone to Tokyo, entered the institute for infectious diseases and came to study under Kitasato Shibasaburō. Kitasato was a bacteriologist known worldwide for his work on tetanus and more. Here Hata stepped in earnest into the demanding world of research into the bacteria that cause disease.
When the first plague patients appeared in Japan, Hata joined the work of preventing the disease from spreading. Plague was a highly dangerous, deadly infectious disease, but he continued researching it for eight years, writing over a dozen papers and, with colleagues, drawing up methods for preventing plague. This long record later led him to world-class research.
When the Russo-Japanese War began, he went to the front as an army doctor and treated soldiers with infectious diseases at field hospitals across southern Manchuria. The next year he was called back to Japan and took charge of quarantine work, checking that returning soldiers did not bring diseases home. Recognition of this work opened the way for him to study in Germany.
He went to study in Germany and researched immunity at Koch's institute in Berlin. Wishing to study at Ehrlich's institute, when letters of introduction failed he wrote one himself and hurried to the institute leaving his luggage at the station. Ehrlich, it is said, welcomed him saying his room and assistants were ready and that they would begin that very day.
At Ehrlich's institute he worked on the search for a drug effective against syphilis. Carefully testing many compounds one by one on animals, he confirmed that the 606th had an excellent effect. It was the moment the first effective drug was found for syphilis, which had tormented people for centuries, and Ehrlich deeply thanked Hata for his precise experiments.
With Ehrlich he announced the results of the research, and they published a book under both their names. The drug was named Salvarsan, and true to its meaning of to save, it saved many patients around the world. The same year Hata was present at Koch's final days before returning to Japan. He was later nominated for the Nobel Prize but did not receive it.
When the government decided to transfer the infectious disease institute to another ministry, he resigned together with Kitasato Shibasaburō and joined in founding the new Kitasato Institute. Standing by his mentor, he devoted himself as a department head to research and guiding younger scientists there. The episode shows his deep trust in his teacher.
When World War I cut off medicines from Germany, he worked with the government, researchers and a pharmaceutical company to produce Salvarsan in Japan. They succeeded in making it domestically, and it was sold under another name. He thus made sure the drug he had helped develop could reach Japanese patients too.
He became a professor at the medical school of Keiō Gijuku, teaching bacteriology and immunology. He invited students to his home for viewings of chrysanthemums he had grown himself, and, it is said, told them that chrysanthemums are raised not only by protecting them but sometimes by pruning them hard. His warm and humorous guidance, likening students to chrysanthemums, is still recalled.
His longtime mentor Kitasato Shibasaburō died, and Hata became vice director of the Kitasato Institute, supporting it. He was later chosen as a member of the Imperial Academy, one of the most honored bodies of scholars. Carrying on the aims of the man he had looked up to since youth, he led medical research in Japan.
He was hospitalized with illness and died at a hospital in Tokyo at the age of sixty-five. His was a life devoted entirely to medicine, and his funeral was held by the Kitasato Institute. A Japanese society for chemotherapy still awards a prize bearing his name, honoring him as the researcher who produced a drug that saved many patients.
Kōtoku ShūsuiHiguchi IchiyōShimazaki TōsonTayama KataiHishida ShunsōNoguchi HideyoYosano AkikoTaki Rentarō
People of the Meiji period ・ People by period
Based on facts found in textbooks and biographies. Uncertain points are marked as such.