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Journal of the association of physicians of india • april 2014 • VOL. 62 Medical Philately
Jokichi Takamine-Forgotten Samurai Chemist
JV Pai-Dhungat*
Jokichi Takamine & Formula of
adrenalin Stamp-Japan, 2004
“Brewing” front piece of, 1677 treatise
Society Stamp-Germany, 1983
J
okichi Takamine was born in Takaoka
on the west coast of Japan. After
graduating from the College of Science
of Tokyo in 1879, Takamine was sent to
study technology in UK where he took
a particular interest in the manufacture
of fertilizers. He returned home and
worked in the Japanese Department of
Agriculture. Shortly thereafter he was
sent to represent Japan at the 1884 Cotton
Continental Exposition in New Orleans.
Takamine rented house from a retired
Union officer. He stayed there and
continued his research into fertilizers,
and also married the landlord’s daughter,
Caroline Field Hitch.
After studying US Patent laws he
returned to Tokyo and established Tokyo
Fertilizer Company with Government
support. His mother could not get
along with wife Carolyn, and to save
his marriage he sought new business
opportunities back in US. But he knew he
could not compete with well established
American fertilizer industry.
Professor of Medicine, T.N.
Medical College (Retd.), Hon.
Physician, Bhatia Hospital,
Mumbai
*
© JAPI • APRIL 2014 • VOL. 62
Takamine decided to adopt methods
of Japanese sake (rice wine) to the
brewing industry. Starch in grain needed
Centenary of German Pharmaceuticals
Stamp-Germany, 1990
to be treated with diastastatic enzyme
to ferment it into alcohol. In the West it
was provided by malt from germinating
barley. Enzyme derived from filamentous
fungus grown on rice in Japan Koji, was
comparable to the malt enzyme, but
far more active and less expensive to
prepare. Takamine sensed a way of
revolutionizing the distillery industry
and returned to USA. With the financial
assistance of his father-in-law Colonel
Hitch, he commercialized the Japanese
process for manufacturing affordable
beer and whiskey.
In 1894, he isolated the enzyme
diastase, from filamentous fungus
aspergillus oryzae that catalyzed
breakdown of starch and was granted
a patent. He licensed his preparation
t o Pa r k - D a v i s C o m p a n y o f D e t r o i t
under the brand name Taka-Diastase.
Extensive marketing by Park Davis
for the treatment of dyspepsia was
enormously successful and Takamine
became a consultant to the Company.
Takamine established his independent
laboratory in New-York, and conducted
the famous work on adrenaline. E
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Schafer and Oliver, then at University College of
London, had proved that adrenal medulla secreted
a substance which had important physiological
effects, notably the rise in blood pressure due to
vasoconstriction, mainly in the skin and splanchnic
area, and also relaxation of bronchial muscles. The
presser substance from adrenal glands was isolated by
J Abel and Crawford at John Hopkins University and
named it epinephrine (1897). Takamine also isolated a
stable crystalline compound of uniform composition
with extremely potent vasopressor properties (1900).
He also determined its empirical formula and named
it adrenaline. The patent taken out for adrenalin by
Takamine and Park Davis was challenged on the
grounds that natural compounds cannot be patented,
but the decision went in favor of the patent holders
(1900). Thus, adrenalin made legal as well as scientific
history.
Discovery of adrenalin was a sensation. The drug
transformed surgery, where it was used to control
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Journal of the association of physicians of india • april 2014 • VOL. 62
hemorrhage. It also found uses particularly in
anaphylactic shock, cardiology, obstetrics and asthma.
Seeing physiological and medical uses of adrenalin,
Takamine predicted that wonderful physiological
action of various glands may depend upon apparently
simple chemical substances.
Despite huge contribution of adrenaline to
medicine, the Nobel Prize was never awarded to
the early work. One can speculate that in those
days of heady progress, the Nobel committee had
superabundant backlog of candidates. Jokichi
Takamine died of a liver ailment in1922. He could
be considered forgotten father of American-Japanese
biotechnology.
Full article was first published in the May 2013 issue of
MediTheme (Quarterly Journal of the Medical Philately Study
Group-UK).
Abridged form is reprinted with the kind permission of
Editor-Dr.S. W. Stuart Menzies.
© JAPI • APRIL 2014 • VOL. 62