Taro Takemi, MD, scientist, inventor, and international medical statesman, is dead at 79 years.
In his review of Takemi's last book, George D. Lundberg, MD, editor of JAMA, emphasizes: "Taro Takemi is one of the most remarkable physicians of this or any other century" (JAMA 1983;249:949-950). Takemi also is credited with a key role in the establishment of the Japanese edition of JAMA.
Takemi died Dec 20 in Tokyo, where he spent most of his adult years, in the hospital of Keio University, from which he received his medical degree in 1930 and where he was being treated for carcinoma of the bile duct.
Only a few days before his death, the Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, announced that a "Takemi Program in International Health" is being established there with $1.6 million in gifts from two Japanese pharmaceutical companies. In attempting "to develop improved methods for health resource allocation,"