Japan Medical Association  The (also known as JMA or ), is the largest professional association of licensed physicians in Japan. The JMA has been a member of the World Medical Association since 1951 and participates at all levels of the WMA. National headquarters are located in Honkomagome, Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan, supplemented by prefectural branch offices and member associations in local communities. With the increasing introduction of western medicine, medical research and peer support among doctors developed during the Meiji period of the late 1800s. In 1879, medical practitioners who subscribed to the practice of "kampo" medicine (traditional Chinese medicine) began to organise themselves in response to Western medicine's growing presence in post-Meiji restoration Japan. Those physicians formed the in 1890 to advocate for the practice of Chinese ("kampo") medicine, but the IMA was dissolved in 1898. As the medical profession continued to develop in line with Western scientific advances of the time, the public wanted to legally regulate medical organisations. In 1906, statutory procedures were implemented to organise professional association activities at the prefectural and local municipality levels, and to require physicians practicing medical services outside of the public hospitals system to join the member association branch in the locality where they practice medicine. Regional medical associations had emerged during the period after 1906, but no national organisation existed to regulate the 30,000 medical doctors practicing outside the national university and Imperial armed forces hospital systems. An attempt to organise physicians on a national level was made under the name in 1914, but the association failed to enlist a sufficient number of prefectural-level medical associations. On November 10, 1916, the was established by the Minister for Interior Affairs, and then later renamed the Japan Medical Association in 1923. The JMA required by law that all Japanese physicians practicing in clinics and hospitals outside the national and Imperial armed forces hospital system to join. During World War 2, the JMA served as the sole national association responsible to maintain and improve clinical health for the Japanese public. During the post-war period the Japan Medical Association underwent reforms with direct intervention from the GHQ of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers. The most notable reform involved persons who had contributed to the war effort and who would no longer be permitted to accept executive appointments in the ongoing business of the association. Following this directive, Toshihiko Nakayama, the chairman of the association at the time, announced that he and others with similar positions would no longer hold offices in the association. Without the demands of World War 2 on the medical fraternity, the association was able to refocus efforts on school, occupation, and community health in addition to standard clinical healthcare.