Tomisaku Kawasaki

At 99 years old, Tomisaku Kawasaki physical status not available right now. We will update Tomisaku Kawasaki's height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, and measurements.

Kawasaki conducted his medical internship year in Chiba and decided to specialize in pediatrics, due to his fondness for children. Medical residency in post-war Japan was unpaid and as his family suffered financial problems, his advisor recommended him take up a paid position at the Japan Red Cross Medical Center in Hiroo, Tokyo. He would later practice as a pediatrician there for over 40 years.

After 10 years of researching milk allergy and unusual host-parasite cases, he saw a 4-year-old boy presenting with a myriad of clinical signs he later termed "acute febrile mucocutaneous lymph node syndrome" (MCLS) in 1961. In 1962, he saw a second patient with the same constellation of symptoms. After he had collected a series of seven cases, he presented them at a meeting of the Japanese Pediatric Association. Reviewers rejected his submission for publication because they did not believe it was a new disease entity. Opposition from several academics over the alleged discovery of the new disease lasted several years. Only after he had collected a total of 50 cases, his 44-page paper was published in the Japanese Journal of Allergy in 1967. The paper included comprehensive hand-drawn diagrams of each patient's rashes and has been described as "one of the most beautiful examples of descriptive clinical writing". Other colleagues across the country soon reported similar cases.

It was not until 1970, that the Ministry of Health and Welfare eventually established a research committee on MCLS headed by Dr. Fumio Kosaki. This committee conducted a nationwide study on the disease, confirming it was a new disease which specifically targeted arteries across the body. In 1973, a pathologist discovered the connection to cardiac disease when he found a child with Kawasaki disease had coronary artery thrombosis at an autopsy. Kawasaki headed the Kawasaki Disease Research Committee which published its findings in the journal, Pediatrics finally in 1974; He has been called "part Sherlock Holmes and part Charles Dickens for his sense of mystery and his vivid descriptions". It was the first time MCLS was published in English and brought international attention to the disease.

Kawasaki retired in 1990, and established the Japan Kawasaki Disease Research Center, which he led as director until 2019 and honorary chairman until 2020. Only in 1992, Kawasaki disease was officially added to Nelson's Textbook of Pediatrics, a leading textbook in the specialty, cementing international recognition of the disease.

In 2007, Kawasaki estimated over 200,000 cases of Kawasaki disease had been diagnosed in Japan since the research committee's findings in 1970. Kawasaki himself never referred to the disease by its eponymous name but conceded that the original name was too long.

Source

• Bering Kitasato Award, 1986
• Takeda Medical Award, 1987
• Health Culture Award, 1987
• Japan Medical Association Medical Award, 1988
• Asahi Prize, 1989
• Japan Academy Prize, 1991
• Tokyo Cultural Award, 1996
• Japan Pediatric Society Prize, 2006
• At some time prior to 2007, he had a personal audience with the Emperor and Empress of Japan at the Imperial Palace.
• Honored by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government