Taiwan Governor-General Medical School (now NTU College of Medicine / NTUH Old Building)

The Taiwan Governor-General Medical School (台灣總督府醫學校, Taiwansōtokufu igakkō) was established in April 1899 by the Government-General of Taiwan under Governor Kodama Gentarō, with Dr. Yamaguchi Hidetaka as its first principal. It was the first institution in Taiwan to offer systematic Western medical education and marked the beginning of Japan's colonial public health infrastructure on the island.

The school's origins trace to the desperate need to control epidemic disease. When Japanese forces occupied Taiwan in 1895, they found the island ravaged by malaria, plague, cholera, and dysentery — diseases that killed more Japanese soldiers and settlers than armed resistance. A temporary hospital was established in Dadaocheng (大稻埕) in June 1895 and moved to the current Changde Street site in 1898. The medical school was founded the following year to train local physicians who could staff the expanding public health network across the island.

Initially a four-year programme with Japanese-language instruction, the school admitted Taiwanese students who had completed common school education. The curriculum emphasized tropical pathology, parasitology, bacteriology, and clinical medicine. Graduates were licensed to practise throughout the empire, and many became the backbone of Taiwan's rural and urban healthcare system.

From 1912 the affiliated hospital was rebuilt in permanent materials, and its signature building was completed in 1921 (the front block is also dated to the late 1910s) — a grand two-storey Renaissance-revival structure of red brick over reinforced concrete, designed by Japanese architect Kondoh Jūrō (近藤十郎, 1877–1946). Kondoh, who also designed Taipei's Ximending Red House (西門紅樓, 1908) and the former Governor-General Library, gave the hospital a symmetrical floor plan with a monumental central entrance, arched corridors on the second floor, and a long central passage connecting wards and clinics. At the time of its completion, it was described as the largest and most modern hospital in Southeast Asia.

The institution underwent several name changes reflecting Japan's evolving colonial education policy: Taiwan Governor-General Medical School (1899–1919), Taiwan Governor-General Medical College (台灣總督府醫學專門學校, 1919–1922), and Taihoku Medical College (台北醫學專門學校, 1922–1936). In 1928, Taihoku Imperial University was founded, and in 1936 the university opened its Faculty of Medicine (台北帝國大學醫學部) and the medical college was attached to it as the affiliated Medical Specialised Division (附屬醫學專門部), with the hospital becoming the University Hospital on 1 April 1938.

The school's most celebrated alumnus is Tu Tsung-ming (杜聰明, 1893–1986), who entered in 1909 and went on to earn a doctorate from Kyoto Imperial University — becoming the first Taiwanese to hold a medical doctorate in the Japanese Empire. Tu returned to teach at the school and became a world authority on snake venom and opium detoxification pharmacology. After 1945, he served as the first dean of the NTU College of Medicine and concurrently director of the Institute of Tropical Medicine.

During the Pacific War (1941–1945), the medical school and hospital were mobilized for the war effort. Faculty and students were deployed to military hospitals across the Southern Theatre — in the Philippines, Malaya, Burma, and the Dutch East Indies — where their expertise in tropical medicine proved critical. The hospital in Taipei served as a military medical facility and treated both Japanese military personnel and civilian casualties from Allied air raids on the city, particularly the devastating 31 May 1945 Taipei air raid (台北大空襲). The hospital building itself sustained damage but remained structurally intact.

After Japan's surrender on 15 August 1945, the Kuomintang government took control of all Japanese colonial institutions. In December 1945, Taihoku Imperial University was reorganized as National Taiwan University (國立臺灣大學), and the medical faculty became the NTU College of Medicine. The old hospital building continued to serve as the main facility of National Taiwan University Hospital (台大醫院) until a new East Campus building was completed in 1991.

The old building (台大醫院舊館, also known as the West Campus / 西址) was designated a municipal historical monument by the Taipei City Government in 1998. Its distinctive red-brick façade, arched colonnades, and Renaissance symmetry remain one of the most recognizable landmarks in central Taipei, standing at the intersection of Changde Street and Zhongshan South Road, adjacent to 228 Peace Memorial Park.