Background
Tomoyasu Sagara was born on April 1, 1836 in Saga, Japan. He was the third son of a surgeon in the feudal domain Saga (nowadays Saga Prefecture), Japan.
Sagara Chian‘s grave (Jōun-Temple, Saga)
Inauguration ceremony for the Sagara Memorial (Tokyo University, 1935)
知安 相良
Tomoyasu Sagara was born on April 1, 1836 in Saga, Japan. He was the third son of a surgeon in the feudal domain Saga (nowadays Saga Prefecture), Japan.
After receiving an education in traditional disciplines and Dutch-style medicine in local domain institutions, Sagara was dispatched to Nagasaki where he continued his medical studies under the Dutch doctor Anthonius Franciscus Bauduin (1820–1885). Studied at the Seitokukan School in Nagasaki and later became its director.
After the resignation of the last shōgun the Meiji government took control over the medical institutions of the Tokugawa regime and assigned Sagara Chian and Iwasa Jun from Echizen to draft a program for the new system of medical care and education.
In 1870 Sagara recommended Germany as the model for Japan's medical modernization. After heavy struggles with proponents of British medicine, Sagara's concept was adopted, and in 1871 the first two German teachers (Benjamin Karl Leopold Müller and Theodor Eduard Hoffmann) arrived in Yokohama. For several years Sagara was involved in medical administration as chief of the Medical Affairs Bureau in the Ministry of Education. He also served as the head of Tokyo Medical School No. 1 that later became the Medical Faculty of the University of Tokyo.
After retiring from his various positions, his life deteriorated quickly. Having left his family in Saga, he died alone from influenza in 1906.Sagara's grave is at the Jōun Temple (Jōun-in) in Saga.