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野口英世（のぐち ひでよ）は、1876年11月9日に福島県耶麻郡三ツ和村（現・猪苗代町）に生まれた細菌学者。幼少期に囲炉裏で左手に重傷を負い、9歳で手術を受けたことが医師を志す契機となった。1900年に渡米し、ロックフェラー研究所で梅毒スピロヘータ培養（1911年）などの業績を上げ国際的名声を得た。1928年、黄熱病研究中の西アフリカで感染死。千円紙幣（1984〜2004年）の肖像としても知られる。
Hideyo Noguchi (November 9, 1876 – May 21, 1928) was a Japanese bacteriologist born to a poor farming family in Inawashiro, Fukushima Prefecture. At the age of about eighteen months, he fell into an open hearth and severely burned his left hand, causing his fingers to fuse together. At nine, thanks to the generosity of his community, he received surgery from Dr. Kanae Watanabe, which partially restored the use of his hand. This transformative experience ignited his lifelong desire to become a doctor and help others.
After years of intense self-study, Noguchi passed Japan’s medical licensing examination in 1897 and moved to the United States in 1900. He joined the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in New York, where he achieved his most celebrated work. In 1911, he succeeded in culturing Treponema pallidum, the bacterium responsible for syphilis — a breakthrough that earned him international acclaim and led to multiple Nobel Prize nominations.
From 1918, Noguchi dedicated himself to the study of yellow fever, conducting field research in South America and West Africa. In late 1927, he traveled to the Gold Coast (present-day Ghana) to continue his research. He contracted yellow fever himself and died on May 21, 1928, at the age of 51. He is remembered as a man who gave his life for science, and his portrait appeared on Japan’s 1,000-yen note from 1984 to 2004.