was a Japanese leprologist and director of the Tama Zenshoen Sanatorium (1914–1931) and the National Sanatorium Nagashima Aiseien (1931–1957). He had been at the frontier of leprosy policy of Japan. He was given the Order of Cultural Merits (1951) and Damien-Dutton Award (1961). He has been the cause of admiration from one side, and the target of criticism from the other.
Life
Early life
He was born in Yamaguchi Prefecture in 1876 and studied medicine at a private doctor's office in Yamaguchi city. He went up to Tokyo in 1894 and studied medicine at a doctor's office and passed the First Stage Doctors' Practice Examination in 1895. Later he studied at a Private school Saisei Gakusha. He passed the final qualification examination in 1896. He then studied pathology at the University of Tokyo for two years. In 1897, he worked at the Tokyo Metropolitan Yoikuen Hospital where he met leprosy patients. In 1899, he isolated leprosy patients within the hospital and created a ward "Kaishun Ward", named after Kaishun Hospital of Kumamoto. This was the first case of leprosy care in Japanese public hospitals. Later he lectured many times on the need of public leprosy policy.
Tama Zenshoen Hospital
In 1909, he became the chief doctor at the newly established Tama Zenshoen Hospital and then in 1914 he became the director of the hospital. He made a world trip to study leprosy abroad.
National Sanatorium Nagashima Aiseien
Following the examples of Hawaii and the Philippines, remote islands were considered as possible sites of sanatoriums, and a national sanatorium was established in the Inland Sea of Okayama Prefecture, and he became the first director in 1931.
Criticisms
He started vasectomy in order to cope with the children born of patients. Originally, it was due to difficulties to bring up the children within the hospital, and later, the worsening of leprosy in pregnancy. The Interior Ministry was consulted, but did not give any response. Later he was bitterly criticized. Kensuke Mitsuda was also known as a strict segregationalist and in 1951 he testified at the Japanese Upper House that all Hansen's disease patients be hospitalized. Although the value of Promin was being established later, he did not change his principle and contributed to the 1953 leprosy prevention law, which retained the principle of segregation. His testimony on November 8, 1951. "The statistics of the Ministry of Welfare say that 2000 patients are not in the sanatoriums, but there may be more patients. The patients out of the sanatoriums should be hospitalized, and many patients refuse our requests. Familial infection continues if forced hospitalization is not introduced. Handcuffs may be necessary, but intellectuals do not enter sanatoriums with excuses. The law should be powerful." On October 2, 1952. "On on the testimony last year, I did not have enough time for preparation. There was no time. The people I want to hospitalize with power are exceptionally violent patients. I am afraid of familial infection."
Pathology
As a leprologist, he was essentially a pathologist. He first discovered the coexistence of tuberculosis and leprosy in a lymph node. The number of autopsies he conducted is the largest in the world, when the cases performed later were added.
Immunology
Although he did not regard himself an immunologist, his discovery of the lepromin test is his most important achievement. It proved very useful in the classification of leprosy. However, the original idea was to distinguish leprosy patients and persons with normal blood, and he invented a skin test using the killed bacilli, the original Mitsuda reaction. He reported it at the 3rd International Leprosy Congress in 1923 but received little attention. Mitsuda stored the necessary materials in a refrigerator and tried to persuade many doctors who came under him to study them, and finally found Fumio Hayashi. The Mitsuda Test was at last completed by Fumio Hayashi.