Here I review several episodes from the life of Masao Ota, mainly in his role as a dermatologist, arranged roughly in chronological order.
Childhood
Masao Ota was born in 1885 (Meiji 18) in Ito City, Shizuoka Prefecture.
Years later, his elder sister Takeko recalled the following in the Osaka Mainichi Shimbun:
“Although he later became a doctor, when he was in elementary school he disliked school so intensely that he simply refused to go. I often had to carry him on my back and take him there. Even then he would say, ‘Even if I go to school, I will just keep my eyes closed.’ When we told him that if he insisted on doing so it was entirely up to him, he really did keep his eyes closed the whole time, and for quite a long while he caused everyone considerable trouble.”
Nevertheless, his academic performance was excellent. In higher elementary school he graduated at the top of his class and served as class leader.
During childhood he became familiar with many books, influenced by his elder brothers and sisters.
Before Higher School
The Ota family intended that he should become a physician. Ota himself, however, loved literature and art and wished to become a painter.
Yet his close friend Haruo Yamazaki, who was more skillful at drawing than he was, did not pursue painting but instead chose to study medicine. In addition, his elder sister Kin strongly opposed the idea of his becoming a painter. Under these influences, Ota entered the Third Division of the First Higher School, namely the course designed for students intending to study medicine.
First Higher School
During his years at the First Higher School he was deeply impressed by Professor . Iwamoto’s lectures on Goethe’s Italian Journey. While still a student he was active in literary circles such as Myōjō and the Pan no Kai. He read Nietzsche, Tolstoy, Goethe, Turgenev, and others, and passed through a period in which he wavered between entering the Faculty of Literature and pursuing medicine.
He wrote:
“…I am now within the current of the medical profession, yet somehow I feel an unpleasant feeling about it. In contrast to this, I attempt to take literature as my object; this seems to me to be the path a person ought to follow…”
He also wrote:
“…What troubled me once—around March of last year—was the question of whether I should become a physician or a painter. At that time the profession of medicine, which I had not chosen, was something I disliked and feared, something contrary to my convictions. To become a painter was what I desired; that profession was one that I revered…”
Elsewhere he wrote that he could find no value in competition among national powers or in struggles between races, and that he would certainly never become either a soldier or a government official. He further questioned whether the role of a physician—treating only a few patients—could truly be the purpose of his life, and he even wrote that the path he ought to follow was literature. At the same time he expressed lingering attachment to the profession of painting.
These reflections may appear to be the somewhat youthful struggles of a talented young man. Yet they were not merely problems of youth; rather, they became a fundamental tone that continued throughout his life.
Later, when he was forty years old, these feelings were condensed in an essay entitled “Recollections of My Days at the First Higher School.”
“…Even now I remain grateful for those three years of life. It was the teachers and seniors of that time who opened my eyes, directly and indirectly, to nature and to human life. Among them I especially remember the great influence I received from Professor Iwamoto. Despite the complaints of many students, he made us finish reading nearly two-thirds of Goethe’s Italian Journey within a single year. That was truly due to him. I too, within my own capacity, was able to perceive something of Goethe’s spirit. Indeed, the fact that I am able to face life with a mind that is usually calm is due to the reading habit that he implanted in me.”
Around the Time He Entered the Department of Dermatology at the University of Tokyo
As a university student, Mokutaro (Ota’s literary name) spent several years participating in the activities of the Pan no Kai, passing through what might be described as his own Sturm und Drang period. Yet he remained uncertain about his course after graduation.
When he consulted Mori Ōgai, whom he deeply admired, Ōgai recommended physiology. This did not suit him well, and he later asked whether psychiatry might be an alternative, but this suggestion also received little enthusiasm. At one point Ōgai remarked that “Dohi is the most professor-like among the professors.” This remark also influenced him, and Ota eventually entered the Department of Dermatology and Syphilology headed by Keizō Dohi.
Later, during his years at Tohoku University, Ota recalled the following:
“Professor Dohi once said with a laugh that the man ranked so low at graduation that it was quicker to count from the bottom. When he asked what the fellow could do, he replied that he could draw, so he admitted him to the department. Later he said that it had turned out quite contrary to his expectations…”
On the other hand, another recollection states that when someone asked a certain Professor U—who had supervised Mokutaro in bacteriology training in the Department of Hygiene—whether he knew him, he replied:
“Usually new members are admitted rather mechanically according to their graduation rank, and special talents are not considered. Ota, however, possesses a wide range of talents beyond literature; he is a rarely seen genius.”
At first he seems to have been regarded as a somewhat troublesome student. He was deeply absorbed in literary pursuits and even forgot the day of an examination. When he begged Professor Ōgai for permission to take a make-up examination, the request was refused and he had to repeat a year. Nevertheless, his abilities were soon recognized and the evaluation of him quickly changed.
After entering the department his daily routine was as follows: in the morning he worked in the outpatient clinic, and in the afternoon he placed a Sabouraud fungal culture apparatus and a microscope on his desk, examined fungi under the microscope, and sketched what he observed. He later wrote that the microscopic images appeared infinitely beautiful to him, and that these hours were the most enjoyable time of his day.
From Manchuria to Study in Europe
His appointment as professor at the South Manchurian Medical School was proposed by Professor Dohi. At the same time, however, Ota himself seems to have wished to leave behind the life in Tokyo, which was full of temptations and distractions, and to enter a quieter world of self-reflection. As he wrote, “In the end I returned to the place where I truly belonged.”
After five years in Manchuria he resigned his post, traveled through Korea and China, returned to Japan in October, and in May of the following year departed for study in Europe. Passing through the United States, Cuba, and London, he eventually settled in Paris.
Having studied at Dokkyo, about eighty percent of his intellectual framework regarding Europe had been shaped by Germany, and therefore he initially struggled greatly with French. The French he had learned at Gyosei and the Athénée Français, as well as from the writings of Dr. Sabouraud, proved insufficient in practice. Nevertheless, under Sabouraud’s guidance he gradually became accustomed to the language.
Although he sometimes showed a certain resistance toward Sabouraud, he opened new ground in the classification of fungi. As mentioned in the previous section, he later received the Légion d’honneur from France.
The Period at Aichi Medical College
After returning to Japan, Ota appears to have wished to conduct research on leprosy, fungi, and dermatology at the Institute for Infectious Diseases. However, through the decisive recommendation of Keizō Dohi and the earnest request of President Yamazaki of Aichi, he accepted a position at Aichi Medical College.
From the correspondence exchanged between Ota and Dohi one can sense a certain displeasure on Dohi’s part that Ota did not consult him very frequently or maintain close communication, despite the polite tone of the letters.
Ota’s wife and relatives were grateful to Dohi for arranging stable employment for him and adopted an attitude of leaving matters entirely in his hands. Ota himself, however, seems to have felt that the appointment did not entirely correspond to his own expectations for his future.
Thus the two years he spent in Nagoya became, in his own words, “a perfectly fitting year of misfortune.” The rented house was far from the university, and its floors were loose and unstable.
In his second year after his arrival he developed appendicitis and, after a long hospitalization, underwent abdominal surgery. During this time his elder brother Enzō—an accomplished architect who had designed structures such as the Eitai Bridge—became involved in a scandal at the Reconstruction Agency and, although innocent, took his own life under the strain.
Yet even within the darkness of these unlucky years, Ota awakened to haikai poetry in the Bashō tradition, and together with like-minded companions he organized gatherings for composing renku. After bringing to an end a convalescent life that had lasted as long as half a year, he departed in October to take up his position as professor at Tohoku Imperial University.
At his farewell gathering he composed the following opening verse:
“Good sake indeed—
yet it is an autumn farewell.”
A physician who later regarded Ota as his mentor, Mitsunori Tanimoto, commented on this verse:
“It is an excellent hokku. For Mokutaro, in the darkness of that unlucky year, the only faint light came through the window of haikai poetry. It is a verse that deeply touches the heart.”
The above passages are excerpts from the following essays (issue numbers omitted):
Kenichi Ueno
Mokutaro: Gleanings
Hifuka no Rinsho 51(1) 2009 – 55(4) 2013
Tomomichi Ono
Masao Ota / Mokutaro Kinoshita — Global and Humanitarian
Hifuka no Rinsho 55(5) 2013 – 59(3) 2017
English version prepared with AI assistance
(Originally published in Japanese on January 5,2018)