Born into a village headman's family in Tawarase village, Musashi (Kumagaya, Saitama).
Infected with a disease by her husband, she divorced. The ordeal of being examined by male doctors made her resolve to become a woman doctor.
She entered the Tokyo Women's Normal School and later graduated with honours.
She was specially admitted to an all-male medical school and studied through hardship.
After repeated petitions for women to sit the medical exam, she was finally allowed to take it.
Passing the exam, she became Japan's first government-licensed woman doctor and opened a practice in Yushima, Tokyo.
With her second husband she moved to Hokkaido and worked as a doctor at the frontier settlement of Setana.
After her husband died, she returned to Tokyo.
She died in Tokyo.
Nogi MaresukeTakaki KanehiroLafcadio Hearn (Koizumi Yakumo)Hoshi TōruIsawa ShūjiTakamura KōunKodama GentarōJosiah Conder
People of the Meiji period ・ People by period
Based on facts found in textbooks and biographies. Uncertain points are marked as such.