Historical changes in diabetes therapy in Japan.

The origins of many aspects of ancient Japanese culture lie in knowledge brought from China, and medicine was no exception. Subsequently, however, in the middle of the 16th century, Portuguese missionaries introduced Western medicine to Japan along with Christianity. They were followed by the Dutch in the 17th century, who introduced Western culture while carrying on commerce at their Dejima outpost in Nagasaki. This was called the Dutch school in Japan, and although there was thus contact with Western culture and the Japanese eagerly studied Western medicine, it was not until after the establishment of the Meiji Reform government in the middle of the 19th century that there was aggressive incorporation and acceptance of modern Western medicine in Japan. The University of Tokyo was the first university in Japan. Preserved in the library of the Third Department of Internal Medicine are old records of hospitalized cases in Japan, and those documents form the basis of this review of the history of the treatment of diabetes mellitus in Japan.