Itō Genboku

Itō Genboku (1801 to 1871) was a Japanese surgeon and an expert in Rangaku who lived during the late Edo period and the early Meiji era. He is recorded as the first surgeon to give a cowpox vaccine in Japan, doing so between 1858 and 1860, which places him among the physicians who introduced vaccination into Japanese medical practice. His offices were later expanded into the foundations of the incipient University of Tokyo Institute of Medical Science, so his practice connects to the early history of a modern Japanese medical research institution. He also appears as a character in the 2009 to 2011 television series Jin, where the actor Katsuya Kobayashi portrayed him.