Kusumoto Ine

Who was Kusumoto Ine?

Kusumoto Ine, also known as Oine was the first female doctor of Western medicine in Japan, and the daughter of German Dejima-based physician Philipp Franz von Siebold.

Her mother was Kusumoto Taki, who may have been a courtesan but who in any case bore a courtesan's stamp in her official papers allowing her access to Siebold in Dejima, the Dutch East India Company enclave in Nagasaki closed to almost all Japanese but courtesans.

Her father was caught smuggling a variety of items, chiefly forbidden maps, and was sentenced with banishment from Japan on 22 October 1829. He left the country by the end of 1829, two-year-old Oine and her mother waving goodbye to him from a small boat in the harbor as his ship pulled away.

Oine remained in touch with her father during his long exile, and was provided with Western medicines by him and with a training in Western medicine by his students who remained in Dejima.

Her father returned to Japan on 4 August 1859, after thirty years of absence. By this time, Oine had married, had a daughter of her own, become the first female doctor of Western medicine in Japan and established a gynecology clinic in Nagasaki. She would see him for the last time in April 1862, as he was forced to return to Europe once again, and never returned to Japan.