[The disciples of Goroji Nakagawa and their practice of vaccination in the northern area of Japan].

Goroji Nakagawa (1768-1848), who returned to Japan from Siberia in 1812, introduced Jennerian vaccination. At present three persons have been identified as his disciples. Yuzo Shiratori (1813?-1851) was the most senior among them. He was the second son of a wealthy merchant in Hakodate and learned medicine under Teisai Hino (1797-1850), a leading physician in Kyoto. It is unknown when he came back to Hakodate; however, Nakagawa taught him the Russian method of vaccination in about 1840. Shiratori went to Akita of the Satake domain to learn medicine further and there he practiced vaccination to prevent smallpox epidemics. Because his method was recognized as being effective, the Satake domain accepted to employ it formally and asked him to teach the method among domain physicians in the period from about 1841-1844. Details of biographies of the other two disciples, Keisaku Takagi and Kozen Sakurai, as well as their practical method of vaccination, have still not yet been clarified; however, it has been established that they used it with many people of Matsuma-e and neighboring areas. In September of 1849 Hino failed to successfully vaccinate on seven consecutive occasions using cow pox crusts obtained from Nagasaki, but he was finally successful in the last trial, using the Russian method as informed by Shiratori. Thus Hino could distribute much lymph among many physicians in the west half of Japan. Considering the above matters, we can conclude that Nakagawa's method had a significant influence on the history of Jennerian vaccination in Japan.