Erwin Bälz

Erwin von Bälz (1849 to 1913) was a German internist and anthropologist who became personal physician to the Japanese Imperial Family and a cofounder of modern western medicine in Japan. Born at Bietigheim-Bissingen, he studied medicine at Tübingen, worked at Leipzig and served as an army medic in the Franco-Prussian War. In 1876 the Japanese government hired him to teach at the Medical College of Tokyo Imperial University, and he stayed 27 years, longer than any other foreign advisor of the Meiji period, teaching more than 800 students and treating leading statesmen. He promoted the hot spring resort at Kusatsu, described the blue skin patches now called the Mongolian spot, and prepared a glycerin and water lotion later sold as Bälz Water. He returned to Germany in 1905 and died at Stuttgart in 1913; his diary was later published.