Heading: (1928 – Japanese-American millionaire Chemist who isolated Adrenalin)
Author: Kawakami, K.K.
Title: Jokichi Takamine / A record of his American achievements
Place Published: New York
Publisher:William Edwin Rudge
Date Published: 1928
Description:

Original gilt-stamped boards and cloth spine. Illustrated with frontispiece portrait of Takamine. Presentation copy, inscribed in 1935 on half-title by Takamine's son, Eben (Ebenezer) who headed his father's company after the chemist's death in 1922.

The first biography of Takamine; (another did not appear until a half-century later), a beautiful example of book production, typical of Rudge's work in the 1920s.

Though the senior Takamine remained a Japanese subject throughout his life - and is therefore not generally considered "Japanese-American" - his career was spent almost entirely in America, which he first visited in the 1880s at the age of 30. His wife was American and his sons (one of whom inscribed this book) both later became American citizens. After establishing a research laboratory in New York, in 1901 Takamine isolated the hormone adrenaline, a pharmaceutical breakthrough that soon made him a multi-millionaire. While the famous cherry blossom trees of Washington, D.C. are usually attributed to a 1912 gift by the Mayor of Tokyo, Takamine was his generous co-donor.

Very good.