【CSR】 Kanematsu donates Yamabiko-go, a Mobile Library Vehicle to the city of Rikuzentakata

Construction of the institute was begun in 1929 after receipt of a donation from Kanematsu, and completed in 1933. The history of Kanematsu is inextricably bound up with Australia, as Company founder Fusajiro Kanematsu in 1989 established Kanematsu's predecessor company as a specialist Japan-Australia trading house. Fusajiro Kanematsu, who passed away in 1913, was not only responsible for building the foundations of trade between Japan and Australia, he also made a number of significant contributions to Australian society. During the Second World War, the Australian government prohibited the use of Japanese names for products, businesses and so on, as it was the language of the enemy.
An exception was made in the case of the Kanematsu Memorial Institute of Pathology, however, partly at the vehement insistence of the Director of Sydney Hospital. The Kanematsu Memorial Institute of Pathology has thus continued, to this very day, to bear the name of the Company's founder and to use the Kanematsu family crest.
The Institute is a highly respected one among the global medical fraternity, and has produced two winners of the Nobel prize for medicine: Sir John Carew Eccles in 1963, and Sir Bernard Katz in 1970.< In 1982 the Institute was separated into four sections, one of which - specializing in clinical testing of blood disorders, microcirculation studies, and histopathology at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital on the campus of Sydney University - retains its links with our Company through the use of its current name of The Kanematsu Laboratories.