PHYSICIAN

Shirō Ishii

1892 - 1959

Photo of Shirō Ishii

Icon of person Shirō Ishii

Surgeon General Shirō Ishii (Japanese: 石井 四郎, Hepburn: Ishii Shirō, [iɕiː ɕiɾoː]; June 25, 1892 – October 9, 1959) was a Japanese war criminal, microbiologist and army medical officer who was the director of Unit 731, a biological warfare unit of the Imperial Japanese Army. Ishii led the development and application of biological weapons at Unit 731 in Manchukuo during the Second Sino-Japanese War from 1937 to 1945, including the bubonic plague attacks at Chinese cities of Changde and Ningbo, and planned the Operation Cherry Blossoms at Night biological attack against the United States. Ishii and his colleagues also engaged in human experimentation, resulting in the deaths of over 10,000 subjects, most of them civilians or prisoners of war. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Shirō Ishii has received more than 2,312,543 page views. His biography is available in 33 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 30 in 2019). Shirō Ishii is the 65th most popular physician (up from 80th in 2019), the 72nd most popular biography from Japan (up from 75th in 2019) and the most popular Japanese Physician.

Shirō Ishii is most famous for his experiments on humans in Unit 731. He experimented on humans by injecting them with various diseases and chemicals to see how they would react.

Memorability Metrics

  • 2.3M

    Page Views (PV)

  • 66.59

    Historical Popularity Index (HPI)

  • 33

    Languages Editions (L)

  • 6.75

    Effective Languages (L*)

  • 2.81

    Coefficient of Variation (CV)

Page views of Shirō Ishiis by language

Over the past year Shirō Ishii has had the most page views in the with 437,449 views, followed by Japanese (102,805), and Russian (79,650). In terms of yearly growth of page views the top 3 wikpedia editions are Simple English (217.95%), Indonesian (207.39%), and Persian (195.80%)

Among PHYSICIANS

Among physicians, Shirō Ishii ranks 65 out of 726. Before him are Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, Karl Brandt, Hans Asperger, William P. Murphy, Johannes Fibiger, and Francesco Redi. After him are Ferid Murad, Otto Loewi, Christiaan Barnard, Herophilos, Elias Lönnrot, and Niels Ryberg Finsen.

Most Popular Physicians in Wikipedia

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1892, Shirō Ishii ranks 29. Before him are Mátyás Rákosi, Stefan Banach, Gregor Strasser, George Paget Thomson, Ernst Lubitsch, and William P. Murphy. After him are Erwin Panofsky, Amanullah Khan, Erhard Milch, Arthur Compton, Marina Tsvetaeva, and Andrey Yeryomenko. Among people deceased in 1959, Shirō Ishii ranks 13. Before him are Owen Willans Richardson, Raymond Chandler, Billie Holiday, Adolf Windaus, Boris Vian, and Heitor Villa-Lobos. After him are Camilo Cienfuegos, Bohuslav Martinů, George Grosz, Buddy Holly, Alfred Schütz, and Errol Flynn.

Others Born in 1892

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Others Deceased in 1959

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In Japan

Among people born in Japan, Shirō Ishii ranks 72 out of 6,245. Before him are Tokugawa Yoshinobu (1837), Hideki Yukawa (1907), Kenzō Tange (1913), Fumio Kishida (1957), Akira Toriyama (1955), and Uesugi Kenshin (1530). After him are Date Masamune (1567), Sonny Chiba (1939), Kazuo Ishiguro (1954), Utamaro (1753), Dōgen (1200), and Tomoe Gozen (1157).

Others born in Japan

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Among PHYSICIANS In Japan

Among physicians born in Japan, Shirō Ishii ranks 1. After him are Kitasato Shibasaburō (1853), Tasuku Honjo (1942), Hakaru Hashimoto (1881), Shinya Yamanaka (1962), Hiraga Gennai (1728), Kusumoto Ine (1827), Shinobu Ishihara (1879), Kiyoshi Shiga (1871), Hiroshi Nakajima (1928), Kyusaku Ogino (1882), and Sunao Tawara (1873).

Japanese born Physicians

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