Journal of Orthopaedic Science 21 (2016) 255e257

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Journal of Orthopaedic Sciencejournal homepage: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/josEditorial

Nobuo Murakami, executive chef of the Imperial Hotel, surgeon in ordinary to the kings of Franceand Ambroise PareIn recent years, the absence of leaders has been pointed out inmany different ﬁelds. By contrast, our predecessors left many clues
as to how to conduct our lives. In particular, the following two persons, who lived in different eras, teach us how humans should live
and dream for future generations: Nobuo Murakami, who lost his
parents when he was eleven years old, underwent training inFrance, and became the executive chef at the age of 48 after over, who started as a barbercoming many difﬁculties; Ambroise Pare
surgeon and later served as a surgeon for four kings of France. I
hope that their life stories will inspire people who are studying tobecome orthopaedic surgeons.
1. About Nobuo Murakami
In 1969, Nobuo Murakami became the 11th executive chef of theImperial Hotel at the young age of 48 e an unprecedented achievement. His parents ran a restaurant, which was completely burned in
the Great Kanto Earthquake. As he became an orphan at the age ofeleven, he underwent many hardships throughout his childhood.
When he was twelve, he was recruited as a live-in employee in awestern restaurant. Then, he was recruited as a cook at the age of
18 by the Imperial Hotel - his long-sought goal. That year WorldWar II started. He was deployed to Shandong Province in China.
He eventually returned home from his detention in Siberia andrestarted to work at the Imperial Hotel for the ﬁrst time in nearly
six years. Only three of the thirteen cooks of the hotel survivedwar. The irony is that, after the war, General MacArthur came toTokyo, and the Imperial Hotel was taken over by the General Headquarters (GHQ) as a boarding house for its executives and ofﬁcers
and lunch meetings were held there.
After a while, the Imperial Hotel resumed normal operations
and started to serve French dishes again, rather than hamburgers
and sandwiches. The hotel lost its many talented cooks to thewar, and its president, Tetsuzo Inumaru, who was dissatisﬁedwith serving only American food, decided to dispatch his cooks toFrance for training. When all eight candidates could not make an
immediate decision and asked Inumaru to “give us a few days to
let us consult with our families”, he became irritated with them.
It must have taken great courage to go to Europe at that time.
When, in the summer of 1954, Murakami was asked by the president if he would undergo training in France, he immediatelyanswered: “I'd love to”. In fact, the president did not expect suchan immediate reply from someone ranked ninth in the hierarchicalorder, and asked him: “Why don't you consult your family?” Murakami answered clearly: “I can convince my family later. There isno need to worry about”. Thus, Murakami took the chance at theage of 33. His pregnant wife, who was raising their two young
daughters, gave her approval without hesitation.
Once in Paris, Murakami chose his training place by tasting the^tel Crillon, Ho^ tel Ritz,
cuisine served by the highest-class hotels: Ho^ tel Meurice, and Ho^ tel George V. His ﬁnal choice was Ho^ tel Ritz.
Ho^ tel Ritz is a traditional hotel at Place Vendo^me where Auguste
HoEscofﬁer, founder of modern French cuisine, had been the headchef. Bunjiro Ishiwatari, the 8th head chef of the Imperial Hoteland master of Murakami, as well as Tokuzo Akiyama - head chef^tel Ritz priorof the Japanese Emperor, underwent training in Ho^ tel Ritz is also famous for having accommodated
to World War II. Ho
Coco Chanel for more than 30 years.
Despite his expectation and excitement, Murakami experienced
difﬁculties right from the start. For many French people who had
lost their families and friends in the war, he was regarded as a
man from an enemy country. He had no choice but to bear cold
stares from other cooks and keep working hard.
However, his experience of JUDO saved him. He had a black belt
before leaving for Paris. When he was asked to demonstrate judotechniques, he impressed his colleagues with his reﬁned technique.
Following this event, his colleagues stopped calling him “petit Japonais” or “Mura” and started to respect him as “Monsieur Murakami”.
After receiving a number of medals of honor from France andserving as the executive chef of the Imperial Hotel, he appeared
in a TV program entitled <Kyo no ryori> (Today's Dish) broadcast
by NHK for nine years to introduce a variety of dishes from homecooking to French cuisine. With the application of French cuisine
to Japanese home cooking always in mind, he explained to theviewers that they could replace brandy or white wine, whichwere not easily available at that time, by Japanese rice wine (sake).
During the Tokyo Olympics in 1964, Murakami served as thehead chef for Restaurant Fuji in the athlete's village. Japan waspraised as a ﬁrst-rank country thanks to his efforts.
As a judo devotee, he became a 5-dan black belt judoka in 1980,
and wanted to further improve even when he reached 60. Murakami always told young cooks to “wait for chances while doing
your best”, and to “pour affection and heart into food” (Fig. 1).
2. About Ambroise Pare
Murakami reminds me of a surgeon who was under similar cir wascumstances and climbed to the top of surgeons. Ambroise Parea surgeon in the French Renaissance period. He was the ﬁrst person
who started as a barber surgeon and became certiﬁed as “maître de

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jos.2016.04.001
0949-2658/© 2016 The Japanese Orthopaedic Association. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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Editorial / Journal of Orthopaedic Science 21 (2016) 255e257

. Published with permissions of Professor Hernigou
Fig. 2. Portrait of Ambroise Pare III: Pare
's contributions to surgical inand Springer (Philippe Hernigou. Ambroise Pare. Int Orthop 2013
struments and surgical instruments at the time of Ambroise Pare
May;37(5):975e80).

Fig. 1. Photo of Murakami Nobuo. Published with offering of the Imperial Hotel.

chirurgie”. He underwent training as a barber surgeon from around1532, and served as a surgeon in ordinary to four kings of France,starting from Henry II in 1552. He was born in the suburbs of Laval
in Loire, 280 km west of Paris. It was very unusual for people likehim who could not understand Latin and Greek to become asurgeon.
Cautery using heated oil had been conventionally used for thetreatment of wounds. However, he recommended non-invasive
therapies based on his experience as a military surgeon, rather
than sticking to traditional theories, and developed new treatment
methods, including ointment treatment for gunshot wounds, bloodvessel ligation, and improvements in quadruple amputation. In
1545, he published a paper entitled “Methods for the treatmentof wounds caused by harquebuses and other ﬁrearms” (Fig. 2).
Although many books were written in Latin, he wrote a numberof medical books using plain French. He is referred to as the “Fatherof modern surgery” for his spirit as a positivist. In 1585, he published “Œuvres” (Works), which covered not only surgery, butalso obstetrics and studies of contagious diseases. In addition,
, the father of forensic medicine, conducted forensic anatomy
Parefor the ﬁrst time in France, and published a paper on “Injuriesand Deaths”.
In 1562, he was promoted to the chief surgeon in charge of
, who was benevCharles IX de France. Many people still praise Pareolent and modest, valued experiences, and had a deep affection forhumans, stating that his personality is reﬂected in those plain and” was used as a logo to represent the SICOT
precise sentences. “Pareheld in 1966. His words of wisdom: <Je le pansay, Dieu le guarist.>rit./I bandaged him, and God healed him),(Je le pansai, Dieu le gue
are inscribed on the foundation stone of his bust in Laval - hishometown.

, a large number of surgeons were related to Ho^ telLike PareDieu, the oldest hospital in Paris founded in 651, including Dupuytren known for his research on contracture and fracture, Ryoun
Takamatsu - the ﬁrst Japanese surgeon who studied in France, Raynaud who reported vascular disorders in the ﬁngers, and Trousseau
who suggested the relationship between malignant tumors andthrombosis.
The places where they both underwent training are located on
the opposite sides of the Louvre Museum and less than 3 km apart^tel Ritz at Place Vendo^me and Ho^tel Dieu on
from each other: Ho Island (Ile de la Cite). I wish I could ask them what dreams
Cite
they had when they had been living there.
3. About Our Meeting This YearOn a different note, it is my honor to serve as president of thisyear's Musculoskeletal Tumor Meeting of the Japanese Orthopaedic
Association that will be held in the summer. While my own expertise lies in hip joints and injury, Juntendo University has provided
treatment for musculoskeletal tumors for more than 30 years. We
are proud that today Juntendo University is among an elite memberof schools in the Tokyo area in terms of clinical practice and basic
principles. The theme of this year's meeting is “Cancer Literacyfor the Next Generation.” In the treatment of musculoskeletal cancer in particular, how should orthopaedics respond to advances indrug development and medical devices as well as to society's
ever-diversifying needs and values. I would like you to join me inthinking about this question, even as we keep sight of where wecurrently stand.
Traditionally, one focus of our meetings has been coordination
with pathologists and radiologists. In the future, I am sure the doorsof our ﬁeld will open more widely to medical staff in other medicalﬁelds, including oncologists and plastic surgeons, as well as physical and occupational therapists, nurses, and pharmacists. To leadthe way in this regard, our meeting this year includes lecturesand symposiums with medical staff from a wide range of medicalﬁelds. I am also extremely grateful to the many medicalDownloaded for Anonymous User (n/a) at Juntendo University from ClinicalKey.jp by Elsevier on October 03, 2018.
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Editorial / Journal of Orthopaedic Science 21 (2016) 255e257

practitioners from around Japan who submitted oral and poster
presentations. We can look forward to a meeting about orthopaedics that deepens our thinking and understanding by including
diverse occupations and various skills across medical ﬁelds in aneffort to build bridges to the next generation.
The two-day meeting will be held July 14e15 at the Tokyo DomeHotel. I look forward to seeing many of you there.

257

Kazuo Kaneko
Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery, Department of Orthopaedics,
Juntendo University School of Medicine,
Honorary Member of French Society for
Orthopaedic Surgery (SOFCOT)
2-1-1 Hongo, Bunykyo-ku, Tokyo 1138421, Japan
E-mail address: k-kaneko@juntendo.ac.jp.

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