Yamagiwa Katsusaburō

Katsusaburō Yamagiwa 山極 勝三郎
Katsusaburō Yamagiwa
Born	(1863-02-23)23 February 1863 Ueda, Shinano Province, now Nagano Prefecture
Died	2 March 1930(1930-03-02) (aged 67) Tokyo, Japan
Nationality	Japanese
Alma mater	University of Tokyo
Known for	Research in chemical carcinogenesis
Awards	Japan Academy Prize, 1919
Scientific career
Fields	Pathology
Institutions	University of Tokyo

Katsusaburō Yamagiwa (山極 勝三郎, Yamagiwa Katsusaburō) (23 February 1863 - 2 March 1930) was a Japanese pathologist who carried out pioneering work into the causes of cancer.

Yamagiwa was born in Ueda, Nagano Prefecture, the third son of the feudal retainer of the Ueda Domain in Shinano Province. He became the adopted son-in-law of Yoshiya Yamagiwa, a physician in Katsuya, Tokyo, and took the surname Yamagiwa. He was a graduate of Tokyo University and became an instructor at the university in 1895. He published his landmark work, Byōri Sōron Kōgi, in the same year.

In a series of experiments conducted in 1915, he and his assistant Kōichi Ichikawa (1888 – 1948) induced squamous cell carcinomas on the ears of rabbits using coal tar, demonstrating the latter's carcinogenic properties. Yamagiwa and Ichikawa shared the Japan Academy Prize in 1919 for their work. Yamagiwa died in Tokyo of pneumonia, aged 67.