Iyo Araki (1877-1969), also known as Iyo Araki San and later as Iyo Araki Kubo, was a Japanese nurse and nursing educator. She was superintendent of nurses and head of the nurses' training school at

St. Luke's International Hospital is a general and teaching hospital located in the Akashicho district (adjacent to Tsukiji) in Chūō, Tokyo, Japan. First opened in 1902, as a medical mission facility by the Episcopal Church in the United States, the hospital is now one of cent ...

in Tokyo from 1903.

Early life

Araki attended St. Margaret's School in

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

, and first trained as a nurse in Japan. In 1900 she traveled to the United States to study nursing education, at Old Dominion Hospital in

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,"Around the World"
''The Spirit of Missions'' (September 1900): 600. and

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, sent by an American medical missionary, Dr. Rudolf Teusler.

Career

Araki was on staff at a hospital in

Kobe Kobe ( ; , ), officially , is the capital city of Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan. With a population of around 1.5 million, Kobe is Japan's List of Japanese cities by population, seventh-largest city and the third-largest port city after Port of Toky ...

as a young woman. Beginning in 1903, she was superintendent of nurses and head of the nurses' training school at St. Luke's International Hospital in Tokyo, using a curriculum based on the American programs she examined in her studies. She presented a report about

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB), also known colloquially as the "white death", or historically as consumption, is a contagious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can al ...

in Japan for the Sixth International Congress on Tuberculosis in 1908. In 1918-1919, Araki led a unit of Japanese nurses working at an American Red Cross hospital at Russian Island. She resigned from teaching duties at St. Luke's in 1920, but remained as superintendent of nurses. She was prominent coordinating the hospital's response in the aftermath of Tokyo's

1923 Great Kantō earthquake The 1923 Great Kantō earthquake (, or ) was a major earthquake that struck the Kantō Plain on the main Japanese island of Honshu at 11:58:32 JST (02:58:32 UTC) on Saturday, 1 September 1923. It had an approximate magnitude of 8.0 on the mom ...

, evacuating patients and keeping them alive when the hospital burned. In 1927-1928 she traveled again to the United States, on a fellowship from the

Rockefeller Foundation The Rockefeller Foundation is an American private foundation and philanthropic medical research and arts funding organization based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The foundation was created by Standard Oil magnate John D. Rockefeller (" ...

, to study American hospitals. "Miss Araki is something of a national hero in her native country", noted ''The New York Times'' in 1927.

Personal life

Araki married Rudolf Teusler's assistant and successor as director at St. Luke's, Dr. Tokutarō Kubo, in 1935. She was widowed when Dr. Kubo died in 1941. In 1951 she was honored by the Church of Japan as one of Tokyo's "semicentenarians", marking more than fifty years since her baptism."Semicentenarian Churchpeople"
''The Living Church'' (September 2, 1951): 9. She died in 1969, aged 92 years.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Araki, Iyo 1877 births 1969 deaths Japanese nurses