4. Cooperation Between Firms and Doctors

Dr. Shichiro Hida appeared in the previous two chapters both as the inventor of an X-ray machine for Shimadzu and as a doctor involved in the promotion of radiology as a specialty. His position as an intermediary between the health equipment industry and medical doctors was strengthened by his action as an entrepreneur. In 1915, Hida and his brother Shigeru, the owner of a small trading firm, founded an X-ray manufacturing and marketing company that would continue operating into the 1950s. The development of the X-ray device for Shimadzu during World War I probably made Hida and his brother conscious of the potential that business could hold. Still, the brothers’ enterprise was not at the frontier of innovation; it rather represented the adaptation of foreign technology to the Japanese market.