[Kenzo Yoshida of the Hiroshima Domain and Chloroform Anesthesia at the End of the Edo Era in Japan].

Japanese physicians encountered difficulties in obtaining information from The Netherlands on general anesthetics since 1848. It was a turning point when Chinese medical textbooks were imported in the latter half of the 1850 s. They were written by Benjamin Hobson (1816-1873), a British missionary and physician who lived in China for many years. Among them, Siyi Luelun (Sei-i Ryakuron) published in 1857, was widely welcome by Japanese surgeons and medical students. Kenzo Yoshida (1848-1924), a physician from the Hiroshima Domain, was impressed by a two-page description of chloroform anesthesia in it He observed William Willis administrating chloroform anesthesia on several injured Satsuma domain soldiers in January 1868 at the Shokokuji Temple in Kyoto. A few days later, Yoshida had a chance to administer chloroform to a man who committed suicide by cutting the abdomen. The intestine, which was 90 cm long, protruded from the wound, was put back into the abdominal cavity under chloroform anesthesia given by Yoshida. This is the second case of chloroform anesthesia administered by a Japanese physician.