Believing that the origin of the complexity of the present nurse education and training courses lies in the nurse regulations enacted by the Ministry of Home Affairs in 1915, the author has studied the background and significance of the regulations through investigations and analyses of the regulations which were promulgated in prefectures prior to the 1915 nurse regulations. This study reveals that firstly, the nurse regulations made by the Ministry of Home Affairs were enacted in the intensive form of regulations locally promulgated prior to the nurse regulations, secondly that the qualification structure for nurses was the same as that for doctors, and thirdly that the two ways of nurse license acquisition; by either qualification exams or graduation from training schools, and the two level license systems; namely registered and enrolled nurses, were all decided by the nurse regulations and were the origin of the complexity of the present nurse systems, which have influenced the public health nurse midwife and nurse regulations promulgated after the second world war.
