Take Hagiwara

Take Hagiwara (1873 to 1936) was a Japanese nurse trained by the Red Cross and sometimes called the Japanese Nightingale. She graduated from nursing school in 1897, toured Europe to study its hospitals, and was appointed as the first commoner to direct the Japanese Red Cross. In 1920 she led a successful campaign to help Polish orphans who had become refugees in Siberia, and in the same year she was one of the first recipients of the Florence Nightingale Medal. She served as an honorary delegate to the International Council of Nurses for 22 years and founded the Nursing Association of the Japanese Empire in 1929, which gained full admission to the council in 1933. She was Superintendent of Nursing for the Japanese Red Cross for 36 years.