Former Tokyo Army Garrison Hospital (National Center for Global Health and Medicine)

The Tokyo Army Garrison Hospital (東京衛戍病院) traces its origins to October 1868, when a provisional military hospital was established near Yamashita Gate of Edo Castle to treat soldiers wounded in the Boshin War — the civil conflict that brought about the Meiji Restoration. This makes it one of the oldest medical institutions in modern Japan, predating most civilian hospitals. The original facility was located near present-day Ginza, in a former daimyo mansion, and initially operated under the Bureau of Military Affairs (軍務官).

Over the following decades the hospital underwent numerous name changes reflecting Japan's rapid military modernization: Tokyo Garrison Provisional Hospital (1871), Second Provisional Hospital of the Army (1872), Army Main Hospital (1873), Tokyo Army Hospital (1881), Tokyo Garrison Hospital (1897), and finally Tokyo First Garrison Hospital (東京第一衛戍病院, 1903; the hospital's own chronology gives 1906). During the Sino-Japanese War (1894-95) and Russo-Japanese War (1904-05), the hospital played a critical role treating casualties, with patient numbers rising sharply during the latter conflict. X-ray equipment is said to have been introduced here during this period. The famed military surgeon and author Mori Ogai (森鷗外) served as an army medical officer closely associated with the military medical establishment of which this hospital was the centerpiece.

In 1929 (Showa 4), the hospital relocated from its cramped quarters near Hanzomon to a spacious new campus in Toyama, Shinjuku Ward — the same Toyama district that housed the Army Medical School (陸軍軍医学校) and other military medical facilities. This concentration of military medical infrastructure in Toyama made the area the nerve center of Imperial Japan's military medicine. In 1936, under army reorganization, all garrison hospitals were renamed "Army Hospitals" (陸軍病院), and the facility became the Tokyo First Army Hospital (東京第一陸軍病院).

During the Pacific War (1941-1945), the Tokyo First Army Hospital served as the principal military medical facility in the capital, treating wounded soldiers evacuated from battlefields across the Pacific, China, and Southeast Asia. As the war situation deteriorated and American strategic bombing intensified from 1944 onward, the hospital established numerous branch facilities that were evacuated to locations across Japan. Many of these branch hospitals later became independent national hospitals in the postwar period, forming the backbone of Japan's national hospital network.

Following Japan's surrender on August 15, 1945, the hospital was transferred from the dissolved Imperial Japanese Army to the Ministry of Health and Welfare and renamed the National Tokyo First Hospital (国立東京第一病院). It transitioned from military to civilian medicine, opening its doors to the general public. The institution became a pioneer in postwar Japanese medicine — introducing radioisotope therapy in the early 1950s and, in 1954, what is known as Japan's first comprehensive health screening programme (人間ドック). In 1974 it was rebuilt as the National Hospital Medical Center with modern high-rise facilities, and in 1993 merged with the former Nakano Hospital to become the National International Medical Center. Since 2010 it has operated as the National Center for Global Health and Medicine (NCGM), one of Japan's six National Centers for advanced and specialized medical research. In April 2025 NCGM was merged with the National Institute of Infectious Diseases to form the Japan Institute for Health Security (JIHS). Today, while no visible wartime structures remain on the campus, the institution's unbroken 157-year lineage from battlefield hospital to global health research center represents one of the most remarkable institutional transformations in Japanese medical history.