Hanaoka Seishu (華岡青洲, November 30,1760 – November 21,1835) was a Japanese physician and was the first to perform surgery using general anaesthesia.

He performed a breast cancer operation in 1804 using a compound he called Tsusen san, based on the plants Datura metel and Aconitum and others.

His patient was 60 year old, Kan Aiya, whose family was beset by breast cancer - Kan Aiya being the last of kin alive.

Seishu Hanaoka learnt traditional Japanese medicine as well as Dutch-imported European surgery. The imported knowledge was very difficult for him and other Japanese physicians to learn, as no foreign medicine books were allowed to be brought to Japan.

The national isolation policy of the Tokugawa Shogunate prevented Seishu's breakthrough in being discovered until after the isolation ended (1603 - 1868).

This unfortunate factor meant that anaesthesia in the rest of the world had to develop independently.

Japanese physicians | Surgeons | 1760 births | 1835 deaths

華岡青洲