Hideyo Noguchi: Who Should Napoleon Only Slept 3 Hours A Day?

“Napoleon only slept 3 hours a day. It can’t be impossible for me to endeavor if he can do so.” (earth-words.org). This is a quote by Hideyo Noguchi. Hideyo Noguchi was a Japanese bacteriologist who devoted his life to the study of bacteria and viruses. He was famous for only sleeping 3 hours a day. During his study of medical science in America, his eagerness towards studying created a rumor that Japanese people only had to sleep every two days. His enormous amount of concentration allowed him to master English, German, French, and simple Chinese. It was said that he learnt a language in 3 months. He also never searched words in the dictionary that he already looked up once. Hideyo Noguchi was originally named Seisaku. He was born to a poor peasant family on November 24, 1876 in Inawashiro, Japan, and died on May 21, 1928 in Accra, a Gold Coast colony in Africa. At the age of 2, he burnt his left hand when he fell into a fireplace at home. Due to this incident, his mother Shika decided to send Hideyo to school because he was no longer able to succeed his father in the
There, he not only learnt medical science but English, German and French as well. At the age of 19, Hideyo came to Tokyo and successfully obtained a medical license. However, he decided to establish himself as a scientist because he couldn't physically examine patients due to his disabled left hand. When Hideyo was 23, he served as a guide and an interpreter for Dr. Simon Flexner, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania who came to visit Tokyo. A year later, when he went to the United States for studying, he visited Dr. Flexner at the University of Pennsylvania and became his assistant. Due to his hard work, he got a scholarship to study in Denmark. He learnt the basics of bacteriology there. When he was 28, he became an assistant at Rockefeller Institute for Medical