Julius Scriba

Infobox Person
name = Julius Karl Scriba


caption = Bronze bust of Dr Julius Scriba at University of Tokyo
birth_date = 5 June 1848
birth_place = Darmstadt, Germany
death_date = 3 January 1905
death_place = Kamakura, Japan
other_names =
known_for = foreign advisor to Meiji Japan
occupation = medical doctor, educator, foreign advisor to Japan
nationality = Germany

Julius Karl Scriba (5 June 1848 – 3 January 1905) was a German surgeon serving as a foreign advisor in Meiji period Japan, where he was an important contributor to the development of Western medicine in Japan.

Biography

Scriba was born in Darmstadt, Germany and practiced medicine in Freiburg im Breisgau. In addition to his medical accomplishments, he was also a gifted amateur botanist, and published a book on the flora of the Grand-Duchy of Hesse.

Beginning in 1870, the Japanese government hired a series of German medical specialists to establish a modern medical school system in Japan. At the time, German medicine was considered to be the most advanced in Europe, with most medical textbooks and research papers published in the German language. Western medicine had been introduced into Edo period Japan by German-speaking physicians such as Engelbert Kaempfer and Philipp Franz von Siebold, and the German physician Erwin Balz was serving as the personal physician to Emperor Meiji.

Scriba was employed by the Japanese government from 6 June 1881 to 5 June 1887, and taught surgery, dermatology, ophthalmology and gynecology at the Medical School of Tokyo Imperial University. He returned once to Germany, but his contract was renewed again from 2 September 1889 to 10 September 1901. He is credited with performing the first craniectomy for a depressed skull fracture in Japan in 1892. He trained many surgeons who later became leaders in modern Japanese surgery. His Japanese assistant Miyake Hayari (1867-1945) was one of the first Japanese neurosurgeons.

Scriba was called upon by the Japanese government twice during particularly sensitive international incidents: the first time was after the Otsu Scandal, when Russian Tsarevich Nicholas Alexandrovitch (the future Tsar Nicholas II), was assaulted by a Japanese policeman in 1891; and the second time when the Chinese diplomat Li Hung-chang was shot while attending the Shimonoseki Peace Conference in 1895 which ended the First Sino-Japanese War.

Scriba died of illness in Kamakura, Kanagawa prefecture in 1905, and was buried in the foreign section of the municipal cemetery at Aoyama, Tokyo.

References

*cite book
last = Bowers
first = John Z.
year = 1981
title = When the Twain Meet: The Rise of Western Medicine in Japan
publisher = The Johns Hopkins University Press
id = ISBN 080182432X
*cite book
last = Griffis
first = William Elliott
year = 2000 (reprint)
title = The Mikado's Empire, Volume 2
publisher = Adamant Media Corporation
id = ISBN 140219742X
*cite book
last = Low
first = Morris
year = 2005
title = Building a Modern Japan: Science, Technology, and Medicine in the Meiji Era and Beyond
publisher = Palgrave Macmillan
id = ISBN 1403968322