Wakayama Notables
Konosuke Matsushita (1894-1989)
He was born in Wasa village, nowadays part of Wakayama city. When he was still a child he moved to Osaka where he worked many jobs which left him with many labor skills. In 1918 he founded the Matsushita Electric Co. Lt. The company grew to great proportions influencing the Japanese way of business, especially the area of electronics. The name Matsushita has been spread throughout the world through its better known brand names: National and Panasonic.
Seishu Hanaoka (1760-1835)
He was born in the city of Naga. Hanaoka studied and showed a particular interest in anesthesia on which he centered his studies. After 20 years of research he developed the anesthesia called “tsusensan” using mandrake. In 1805 he used anesthesia in surgery for the first time in the world.
Kumagusu Minakata (1867-1941)
He was born in Wakayama city and was a renowned naturalist. He learned many languages by his own and conducted thorough research in the areas of botanics, archaeology, ethnology, anthropology, etc. He published many works in the British science magazine “Nature” and focused on the study of the mucus fungis. Together with Kunio Yanagida he worked towards the creation of the ecologist ethnology.
Morihei Ueshiba (1883-1969)
He was born in the city of Tanabe. He lived in Hokkaido where he met Sosaku Takeda, master of the traditional martial art of “Jujutsu”, taking part of the Daito school. After hard and continuous training he was conferred with the highest title in martial arts. While learning other martial arts of different schools he deepened his interest in creating his own discipline. Finally, Ueshiba created the martial art known as “Aikido”. Eventually he moved to the city of Ayabe in Kyoto Prefecture where he founded his school called “Ueshiba Dojo”.
Katsumi Takahashi (1892-1925)
He was born in Wakayama City and studied at Tokyo University. After graduating he continued his studies under the direction of Umetaro Suzuki, who discovered Vitamin B. Takahashi had a great interest in proving the existence of Vitamin A, which until then was heard of but not yet discovered. In 1922 he successfully obtained Vitamin A from cod’s liver. This discovery was a milestone in the treatment of nictalophy (nocturnal blindness), a disease caused by a defiiciency of vitamin A.
By Francisco Alcantara