“Medical and Pharmaceutical Society for WAKAN-YAKU” originated in 1984. The purposes of its establishment are:

1. For pharmaceutical and medical scientists, doctors, and pharmacists who research natural medicines (traditional medicine and pharmacy) in a variety of different forms to come together and share information.
2. For colleagues who research systems of Kampo medicine and other traditional medical science in a variety of different forms to gather and share information.
3. To attempt to fuse natural science, which is based on reductionism, with traditional medical and pharmaceutical science, which consists of complex systems and multi-component systems.
4. To establish a new kind of therapeutics, and to share with the general public the results that it yields.

The society’s predecessor was the “WAKAN-YAKU Symposium.” Counting Professor Yuichi Yamamura (former president of Osaka University) among its founders, it held its first symposium in 1967 in Toyama prefecture.
For 17 years after that, it moved from one venue to another all around the country and continued holding symposiums. Once the judgment was made that it had achieved a sufficient increase in membership and successfully established an academic platform, the WAKAN-YAKU Symposium was dissolved and the Medical and Pharmaceutical Society for WAKAN-YAKU was launched.

The Medical and Pharmaceutical Society for WAKAN-YAKU is a society in which basic and clinical researchers join together and carry out academic activities relating to natural medicines (traditional medicine and pharmacy). Its major activities, aimed at achieving the four objectives listed above, are the hosting of an academic conference once a year and the publication of an academic journal, the Journal of Traditional Medicines.
In recent years, traditional medicines have been used frequently in medical treatment. With traditional medicines playing a large role in the treatment of chronic diseases in particular, for example, it is attracting considerable attention.
When one takes into account these circumstances in the medical field and the current conditions in medical and pharmaceutical science education, it is clear that the advancement, enrichment, and improvement of research and education in medical and pharmaceutical science relating to natural medicines (traditional medicine and pharmacy) are vitally important. The tasks expected of the Medical and Pharmaceutical Society for WAKAN-YAKU and the roles it must fulfill are great.