Takahashi Mizuko (1852-1927)
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senzenwomenTakahashi Mizuko was born in 1852 in present-day Aichi Prefecture, to a former samurai family fallen on hard times through the Meiji Restoration. Having lost her parents early, she was raised by her oldest brother’s family. (One story is that she asked her sister-in-law for sewing lessons and was ignored; undaunted, she took apart a kimono, figured out how it was put together, and taught herself to reconstruct it.) In her mid-twenties, she was offered a home in Tokyo with an aunt and uncle, but left to make her own way when she found they had in mind that she marry their adopted son.
She first took a job as a maidservant; when her employer suggested marriage to a relative of his, an elementary school teacher from Maebashi in Gunma, she accepted. The marriage did not last long, however, and in order to be able to support herself (like many struggling women at the time, she relied for a while on pawning and re-pawning her kimonos), Mizuko moved in with Tsukui Isoko, head of the Maebashi midwives’ association, to learn the trade.
Her next step was attending the Kokyojuku school for midwives in Tokyo, where she became one of the relatively few nationally licensed midwives. It was there that she first began to think of becoming a doctor. Like Ogino Ginko, she was hampered by the rule preventing women from taking the qualifying exam; she went so far as to speak directly to the government official in charge, who told her to possess her soul in patience. In the meantime, she decided to attend the Saiseigakusha medical school, which (unlike the Kojuin, where Ginko had gone) she could just barely afford. “Here are the application papers for your brother.” “No, it’s for me.” “There must be some mistake. This is a medical school, and it is all male.” “No, you mean it was all male. From now on it’s not going to be.”
She conducted an impromptu sit-in for three days and three nights in front of the school’s gates; they gave in, and in 1883 she was admitted, thus opening the door to other women students (such as Yoshioka Yayoi) as well. Mizuko, thirty-two when she began her studies, survived the bullying of the other students—younger and male—and worked her way through school, earning her tuition with midwifing and a series of menial jobs, finally taking and passing the qualifying exam (the third woman in Japan to do so, after Ginko and Ikusawa Kuno) to open her own clinic in 1887 at the age of thirty-six.
Popular with her patients, a famous and well-loved figure among the working-class Tokyo community she had chosen to set up shop in, she was sometimes admired as “the cross-dressing lady doctor” for her short hair, habit of dressing in men's haori hakama, masculine speech, and general bold and brash demeanor. (Many people later remarked on the contrast she made with her contemporary the soft-spoken, devout Ogino Ginko).
In 1890 she set off for the University of Berlin, determined to study medicine further in Germany (a relative of her old mentor Tsukui Isoko’s gave her a quick and dirty grounding in German). Unfortunately, the doors of Germany were closed even tighter than those of Japan against women medical students. Mizuko told her landlady, a sympathetic ear, that she was prepared to make her point by stabbing herself to death on the university doorstep if they wouldn’t let her in. The landlady, horrified on her behalf, pulled strings to admit her as an auditing student. Upon her return to Japan, she passed on the knowledge acquired by training younger doctors as well as seeing patients. She was also involved in various charity enterprises such as free medical care and vaccinations for orphans and expectant mothers in poverty.
Mizuko never liked to discuss her younger days or admit to her age (asked how old she was, she would answer “A year older than I was last year”), but she chose to retire at sixty (“to avoid mistakes”). She spent her last years quietly writing poetry and died in 1927, aged seventy-six. As directed in her will, her skeleton was made into a specimen for study.
Sources
Nakae, Shimamoto
She first took a job as a maidservant; when her employer suggested marriage to a relative of his, an elementary school teacher from Maebashi in Gunma, she accepted. The marriage did not last long, however, and in order to be able to support herself (like many struggling women at the time, she relied for a while on pawning and re-pawning her kimonos), Mizuko moved in with Tsukui Isoko, head of the Maebashi midwives’ association, to learn the trade.
Her next step was attending the Kokyojuku school for midwives in Tokyo, where she became one of the relatively few nationally licensed midwives. It was there that she first began to think of becoming a doctor. Like Ogino Ginko, she was hampered by the rule preventing women from taking the qualifying exam; she went so far as to speak directly to the government official in charge, who told her to possess her soul in patience. In the meantime, she decided to attend the Saiseigakusha medical school, which (unlike the Kojuin, where Ginko had gone) she could just barely afford. “Here are the application papers for your brother.” “No, it’s for me.” “There must be some mistake. This is a medical school, and it is all male.” “No, you mean it was all male. From now on it’s not going to be.”
She conducted an impromptu sit-in for three days and three nights in front of the school’s gates; they gave in, and in 1883 she was admitted, thus opening the door to other women students (such as Yoshioka Yayoi) as well. Mizuko, thirty-two when she began her studies, survived the bullying of the other students—younger and male—and worked her way through school, earning her tuition with midwifing and a series of menial jobs, finally taking and passing the qualifying exam (the third woman in Japan to do so, after Ginko and Ikusawa Kuno) to open her own clinic in 1887 at the age of thirty-six.
Popular with her patients, a famous and well-loved figure among the working-class Tokyo community she had chosen to set up shop in, she was sometimes admired as “the cross-dressing lady doctor” for her short hair, habit of dressing in men's haori hakama, masculine speech, and general bold and brash demeanor. (Many people later remarked on the contrast she made with her contemporary the soft-spoken, devout Ogino Ginko).
In 1890 she set off for the University of Berlin, determined to study medicine further in Germany (a relative of her old mentor Tsukui Isoko’s gave her a quick and dirty grounding in German). Unfortunately, the doors of Germany were closed even tighter than those of Japan against women medical students. Mizuko told her landlady, a sympathetic ear, that she was prepared to make her point by stabbing herself to death on the university doorstep if they wouldn’t let her in. The landlady, horrified on her behalf, pulled strings to admit her as an auditing student. Upon her return to Japan, she passed on the knowledge acquired by training younger doctors as well as seeing patients. She was also involved in various charity enterprises such as free medical care and vaccinations for orphans and expectant mothers in poverty.
Mizuko never liked to discuss her younger days or admit to her age (asked how old she was, she would answer “A year older than I was last year”), but she chose to retire at sixty (“to avoid mistakes”). She spent her last years quietly writing poetry and died in 1927, aged seventy-six. As directed in her will, her skeleton was made into a specimen for study.
Sources
Nakae, Shimamoto
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Date: 2024-02-09 10:32 pm (UTC)I enjoy reading these every week! <3
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Date: 2024-02-13 02:39 pm (UTC)Absolutely. She must have been amazing.
I enjoy reading these every week! <3
Very glad to hear it! I enjoy writing them up. <3 <3 <3
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Date: 2024-02-10 07:52 am (UTC)Oh wow! She sounds really cool.
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Date: 2024-02-13 02:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-02-11 07:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-02-13 02:41 pm (UTC)