Satō Sankichi

Satō Sankichi (1857 to 1943) was a Japanese surgeon and professor who carried Western surgical training into Japanese medical practice. He was born the third son of a member of the Ōgaki Domain, and after his father died in 1871 he moved to Tokyo and entered a private school run by Shiba Ryōkai. At Tokyo University he learned surgery under the German teacher Julius Scriba and graduated in 1882, then studied abroad in Germany alongside Aoyama Tanemichi. In 1887 he became a professor at Imperial University and medical center director of its attached hospital, and in 1898 he founded the Japan Surgical Society together with Tsugishige Kondo. He was one of the first Japanese surgeons to make use of antiseptics in surgical practice. He became president of the Tokyo University Faculty of Medicine in 1918, was named emeritus professor in 1921 and then became a member of the House of Peers.