Famous People of Wakayama

Konosuke Matsushita (1894-l989)

Born in Wasa Village in Kaiso County (pre sent - day Wakayama City), Matsushita moved to Osaka as a child, where he entered into an apprenticeship and endured many hardships in order to gain work experience. In 1918, he independently set up Matsushita Electric, thus establishing the base for the present-day Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. The company grew rapidly and has greatly influenced developments in the elec trical field, especially in household appli ances. The name "Matsushita" has spread around the world with famous brand names like "National" and "Panasonic".

Seishu Hanaoka (1760-1835)

Born in Naga Town in Naga County, Hanaoka grew up in the house of a doctor, and as he aspired to become a surgeon, he went to study in Kyoto, among other Places. He studied Dutch medicine (the style of medical techniques that had been introduced into Japan from the West), and developed an interest in anesthesia, upon which he centered his research. After around 20 y~ars of trial and error, he developed the anesthetic called "Tsusen san", using "mandragora (datura)" as its main ingredient. In 1805, he successfully performed the world'sfirst Painless opera tion under general anesthesia. However, the period leading up to this success was filled with sacrifice and despair for him, such as the death of his mother (who will ingly became a subject for his experi ments), and the blindness of his wife. The story of his tragedy has been handed down from generation to generation.

Kumagusu Minakata(1867-1941)

Born in Wakayama City, Minakata gained distinction as a naturalist. From childhood, he was said to have had extraordinary pow ers of memorization, and several anecdotes concerning this remain. It is said that he read and rote-memorized a "Wakan-sansai-zue" (the Japanese-Chinese illustrated encyclope dia comprising 105 volumes) at a neighbor's house, and upon returning home proceeded to transcribe it from memory. Disliking con ventional learning, he was not always top of his class at school, and even abandoned the idea of going to a university. However, from 1886, he studied overseas especially in America and England and also worked at a British Museum. He taught himself numer ous languages, and beginning with botany, conducted research over a wide range of fields that included archaeology, ethnology, and anthropology. Based on his extensive research, he published many theses in the English science magazine "Nature".

In 1900, he returned to Japan and devoted himself mainly to the research of mucus fungi. At the same time, he became one of the originators of Japanese ethnology, along with Kunio Yanagida. Minakata was also active as an ecologist who supported the nature preservation movement.

Morihei Ueshiba (1883-1969)

Born in Tanabe City, Ueshiba met a tradi tional 'jujutsu" master named Sokaku Takeda when he was a settler in Hokkaidd, and became a student of the Daito school. After continuous hard training, he was conferred full mastership in martial arts. While he learned various arts from other schools; he also intensified his interest in creating his own original discipline. Finally, Ueshiba founded the spiritual martial art "Aikido". Afterwards, he moved to Ayabe City in Kyoto Prefecture, and opened his school, which was called "Ueshiba dojo (school)".

Katsumi Takahashi (1892-1925)

Born in Wakayama City. Takahashi studied at the University of Tokyo. After graduation, he studied under Umetaro Suzuki, the discoverer of Vitamin B. Takahashi had great interest in the existence of Vitamin A, theoretically predicted but not yet discovered, and he therefore devoted himself to research in this field. In 1922, he was successful in extracting Vitamin A from cod-liver oil. This discovery greatly advanced the treatment of nyctalopia (night blindness), an illness that was found to be caused by Vitamin A deficiency.

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