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Ogino Ginko (荻野 吟子, March 3, 1851 – June 23, 1913) was the first licensed and practicing woman physician of western medicine in Japan

Ginko Ogino
Born	Gin Ogino March 3, 1851 Kumagaya, Saitama, Japan
Died	June 23, 1913 Tokyo, Japan

Life overview

Ogino was born in Tawarese, in the Musashi province (present-day Kumagaya city, Saitama prefecture). The Ogino’s were a respectable family as they had the responsibility of the headquarter of that area.  She had two brother and four sisters and she was the youngest one.

She got married in 1867 at the age of 16, with an arranged married, to Kanichiro Inamura. Ginko soon divorced from her husband in 1870, after having contracted gonorrhoea. Her divorce has been a burdensome step of her life, as her family was ashamed of having a divorced daughter affected by a venereal disease. Furthermore, the Japanese society of her time used to look at divorced women with extreme disfavour. The fact is that at time women affected by gonorrhoea were considered prostitutes, as this disease is transmitted via sexual intercourse.

After the embarrassment of having to visit male doctors with what was considered a “shameful” disease, she resolved that she would become a doctor in order to help women in similar circumstances. As a matter of fact, in a women’s paper, she even described the inability of male doctors to tackle such a disease; therefore highlighting how much female doctors as well as a more feminist culture were needed.

In 1873, she moved to Tokyo to resume and complete her basic education at the school of Yorikuni Inoue, graduating in 1879 with full honours. This step is highly remarkable as only 15 out of 74 female students from the school managed to complete the journey. It is in 1880 that Ginko enters the medical school of Kojuin, therefore becoming the first female student of the institution.

Afterwards, she entered into Tokyo Women's Normal School (present-day Ochanomizu University), which was at that time a private medical academy with an all-male student body. Despite all the prejudices and much hardship, she managed to graduate in 1882. Still, it was only thanks to a series of petitions that she was finally allowed to take her medical practitioner's examination in 1885, with full grades. Shortly after, she opened the Ogino Hospital in Yushima, specialising in obstetrics and gynecology to help women in their feminine struggles.

In that same year, Ogino Ginko, became the first registered woman doctor in Japan.

She also served as staff doctor to the girls' school of Meiji Gakuin University, always professing for equality between men and women. During this period Ogino Ginko fell closer to the Christian church and she reorganised her schedule in order to dedicate her spare time to voluntary work and church.

In 1890, Ginko got married to a Protestant clergyman and utopian visionary, Yukiyoshi Shikata, with whom she adopted the child of her husband’s sister, after the latter had died during a difficult birth in which Ogino Ginko tried to help as an obstetric. After the marriage, she went with her newly found family to Hokkaidō in 1894, where she ran a medical practice.

In 1906, after the death of her husband, Ogino Ginko returned to Tokyo, where she resumed running a hospital. Here in Tokyo, she was particularly moved by the raising masses of new female doctors and women interested in female’ health that in 1889 she not only founded, but she also became professor of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). Moreover, she was nominated secretary of an association working for ensuring women's health.

Ginko became one of the most important figures of the Meiji period under the scientific aspect. Ogino died 1913.

The gonorrhoea period and the shifting towards Western Medicine

Ogino Ginko firstly got married in 1870 at the age of 16. Her first husband's name was Kanichiro Inamura. He was the firstborn of a wealthy and well-respected family considering their role of assistants of magistrates since ancient times. The family used to live in Kawakami, Nagami prefecture, 300 km far from Tokyo.

During his youth, Kanichiro contracted gonorrhoea, infection that he later transmitted to his wife during their marriage and being so the cause of their divorce.

Years later, Kanichiro Inamura became founder and president of Ashikaga Bank.

This period was a pivotal and turning point for Ogino. Through this phase of her life she was helped by doctor Mannen Matsumoto, specialised in Chinese Medicine and professor of such a discipline. Dr. Matsumoto assisted Ogino Ginko in the first phase of her recovery with natural herbs remedies. During her convalescence she became acquainted with Dr. Matsumoto's daughter, who was also interested in the role and impact that women played in the Japanese society of that time, becoming so her mentor.

After the initial treatment with traditional Chinese Medicine, Ginko found solid help in doctor Shochu Sato, who instead treated her with Western Medicine methods. The promising woman was accidentally stunned by these innovative treatments, becoming so increasingly interested in Western Medicine, as it was based on observations and pragmatism, which was an extremely distant concept from Chinese medicine. For example, human dissections able to give a more detailed explanation and a more precise investigation of the human body, would have never been admitted by the more traditional Oriental medicine.

During this period, Ogino Ginko felt often ashamed of such a disease, and being seen by male doctors only aggravated these emotions. Therefore, after this experience, she decided to become a doctor too, in order to help women in the same condition as hers, building spaces to raise awareness on women’s health. It is during this period that she understood that often, doctor’s arrogance towards the patient led to mistakes in the evaluation of the disease and she therefore decided to take care of the patient’s perspective and history in order to provide a more integrated diagnostic.

Finally, it is worth remarking her change of name as soon as she was admitted into Tokyo Women's Normal School. There was a Japanese tradition dictating the assignment of short names to women with the purpose of handing them out orders more easily. She changed her original name (Gin) to Ginko, adding a character to it, doing once again a step forward.

Male support

After having spent two year in hospital due to gonorrhea and being treated entirely by men, Ginko Ogino decided to become a doctor, as she wanted to give women the option of being treated by other women. This idea was probably due to the fact that at the time girls had just started to stand up for their opinions and their education. During the Meiji period, many people still thought that the female mind was weaker than the males’ one and applying the same standards to male and female higher education could result deleterious, although many male intellectuals supported the struggle for women independence.

In fact while women before the Meiji period were often considered incompetent in the raising of children, the Meiji period saw motherhood as the central task of women, and allowed education of women toward this end.

it's quite important to remember that this period was particularly important for the Japan cause started to arrive the ideas of the Western culture that were so progressive for that time.

Ogino Ginko was lucky enough in 1873 to be able to enter in Tokyo joshi shihan gakkõ, where she won the support of one of her teachers who, knowing that she aspired at becoming a doctor, helped her enrolling into a private medical school. Usually, after having undergone medical school, male students were allowed to sit an exam to be able to fully practice medicine. Ogino Ginko was the first woman to be able to sit for this exam and she eventually got the licence for practicing medicine in 1885. She succeeded in the achievement of this goal only thanks to her connections with influent male doctors, such as Iwamoto Yoshiharu and Inoue who were the most prominent supporter of female empowerment. As she triumphed in this field, other women had just started to follow her path and become female doctors, therefore enlarging the community of female willing to pursue this career. This is why she had become a clear example of the growing emancipation of Japanese women.

Death

Ogino Ginko died of atherosclerosis on June 23, 1913 in Tokyo, at the age of 63. Her body is buried at Zoshigaya Cemetery in Tokyo.

Ogino Ginko's grave at Zōshigaya Cemetery

External links

Hoffman, Michael (August 25, 2018), "The efforts of Japan's first female doctor are worth remembering", The Japan Times.

Walthall, Ann. The Weak Body of a Useless Woman: Matsuo Taseko and the Meiji Restoration. University Of Chicago Press (1989). ISBN 0-226-87237-8

Watanabe Jun'ichi. Beyond the Blossoming Fields. Translated by Deborah Iwabuchi and Anna Isozaki. Alma Books, Richmond (2008).ISBN 978-1-84688-078-0

Análisis Biográfico de Ginko Ogino, written by Mariana Nieto

"Women and Public Life in Early Meiji Japan, the development of the Feminist Movement", by Mara Patessio

"La Nueva Mujer Japonesa: el testimonio prematuro de Higuchi Ichiyō (1872-1896)", by Gustavo Flórez Malagón.

Tishma, Mariel (2021). "The life of a trailblazer: Ogino Ginko, one of the first female doctors in Japan". Hektoen International: A Journal of Medical Humanities.