Issue 12/2023
Paskalev, D.
Medical University – Varna
In 2023, we celebrate 150 years from the birth of the eminent Japanese physician, anatomist and pathologist Sunao Tawara. He was born on July 5, 1877 in the family of Sadao and Sai Nakashima. At 14 years of age Sunao was adopted by his uncle Shunto Tahara, who was a physician in Nakatsu and became the family surname Tahara, later transcribed as Tawara (in German). In 1901, he graduated from the Tokyo University school of Medicine. In 1903, Tawara went to Marburg, Germany, to work with Ludwig Aschoff, one of the leading pathologist on this day. The first assigned research project of Tawara was to examine microscopically 120 formalin-preserved human hearts, obtained at autopsy, for any evidence of interstitial myocarditis playing role in cardiac failure. He could not demonstrate such pathological condition but discovered small perivascular inflammatory nodules in patients who had died from rheumatic fever. These formations were later named „Aschoff’s bodies“ and are specific diagnostic markers of cardiac rheumatic disease. After that he focused to elucidate the nature of the connecting pathway between the bundle of His, described in 1893 from Wilhelm His, Jr, and the cardiac ventricles in varios mammalian hearts, including humans.
During his investigations Taware was able to demonstrate a new formation, which he named „Knoten des Verbindungsbündels“ (nodus atrionventricularis). Moreover, his results demonstrated how the bundle of His was divided into twings and how the bundle ultimately interconnected directly with a network of Purkinje fibers. Later the anatomical formation has been called „Tawara’s node“.
In 1906, Tawara published a book „Das Reizleitungssystem des Säugetierherzens“ (The conduction system of the mammalian heart), with foreword from Aschoff. Tawara returned in Japan in 1906 and became Professor of pathology at Kyushu University. Tawara died in 1952 at Fukuoka.
Key words: Sunao Tawara, Tawara’s node, atrioventricular node of heart, Ludwig Aschoff
Address for correspondence:
Assoc. Prof. Dobrin Paskalev MD, PhD
Medical College, Medical University of Varna
55, Marin Drinov, Str.
9000, Varna
tel: +359 887 765 313
e-mail: dobrinpaskalev@yahoo.com