Great People of Kanazawa Memorial Museum

This guide to the Great People of Kanazawa Memorial Museum follows chemist Jokichi Takamine, who in 1897 set up a lab in Clifton, New Jersey, believing a rival in Vienna or Baltimore might beat him to a substance hidden in the adrenal gland. You'll hear how young chemist Keizo Uenaka joined him from Tokyo in 1900, how the two raced through a summer of failed extractions from sheep glands, and how they tested the results on themselves for lack of any other way to know. The museum, tucked behind Kanazawa's old samurai quarter, keeps the instruments and letters from that gamble, along with the story of Takamine's physician father who once served the Kaga domain.