Although Aichi Medical College was the first university-level institution in the Tokai area, it began with only a three-year preparatory course; after the first round of preparatory students graduated, an entrance ceremony for the first regular course was held in August, Taisho year 11 (1922). YAMASAKI Masatada, KUMAGAI's successor, held the office of president; there were 11 professors appointed at the same time, but the majority were studying abroad, so substitute professors were brought in from the Imperial Universities of Tokyo, Kyoto and Kyushu. In December of the same year the world-famous authority Leonor MICHAELIS was invited to lecture on medical chemistry.
In Taisho year 12 (1923) an English-language bulletin, the "Aichi Journal of Experimental Medicine", was published. That year, when an unprecedentedly huge earthquake struck the Kanto area, the college sent a rescue team to the disaster area four times and gave medical treatment to 2,000 of the inhabitants.
In Taisho year 14 (1925), YAMASAKI became concurrent president of the college and Kumamoto Medical College; however, due to criticism over this concurrent holding of posts, he resigned as president of the college. At the end of the Taisho period, the college had OGUCHI as president and a full complement of professors in clinical medicine: TAMURA as director of the hospital and in dermatology and venereal diseases along with OTA, KATSUNUMA in internal medicine, KIRIHARA in surgery, and KITAMURA in dentistry; but there were only two professors in basic medicine, SATO in anatomy and HAYASHI in pharmacology. The prefectural funding subsidy for the college was only a little over a hundred thousand yen, and added to this was the burden of repaying the prefectural bonds; and it is likely that the difficulties of management being reliant on hospital income influenced the distribution of professors. Naturally, the college was not in a financial position to raise research funds, and was unable to construct any institutional libraries; the alumni association ran a library for student use in a borrowed building.
The best way to overcome these financial issues was to raise the college to Imperial University status, the alternative being to transfer to National Medical College status. The college, its alumni association "Kakuten Gakuyu-kai", and political and economic communities in Nagoya worked together to "realize a comprehensive university in Nagoya, a focal point for rail transport located in the center of Honshu."
However, at that time Japan was sinking into fascism under the financial conditions of the Showa Depression; and, as Kumamoto Medical College had been nationalized and Osaka Medical College was soon to be promoted to an Imperial University, there seemed little chance that the college would also be promoted. The college therefore focused exclusively on its second policy, transfer to the control of the government.
On the other hand, the improvement of facilities such as site expansion, extension of the hospital building and the new construction of the library went ahead steadily by Aichi Prefecture, in preparation for the transfer of the college from prefectural to government control.
In March of Showa year 5 (1931), the nationalization of Aichi Medical College was finally approved by the Imperial Diet, with a written condition stating " the government will not be concerned with providing any funds for 10 years". The foundation of Nagoya Medical College took place on May 1 the following year, Showa 6 (1932). This is one of the reasons why "May 1" was taken as the anniversary date of the establishment of Nagoya University.
That May, which should have been a time for celebration, was suddenly darkened when eight professors who had been with the Medical College from its start as a prefecture-run institution were dismissed and new professors were recruited from among graduates of Tokyo Imperial University, the so-called "Tokyo University clique." Assistants organized an opposition movement, initiating strikes that included hunger strikes. However, President FUJII Seiei did not retract the personnel changes and dealt with the situation by resigning himself. In his resignation speech, FUJII stated that "Only eternal truth clears and liberates a man's confused mind as the moon shines in the night sky"
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