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Born in 1893 in Sanno Village (now Toride City), Ibaraki Prefecture. After the Mito Middle School and the First Higher School, he entered the Medical Faculty of Tokyo Imperial University, specializing in forensic medicine. He served successively as associate professor at Tokyo Imperial University, professor at Niigata Medical College, and professor at Nara Prefectural Medical University, while devoting himself to haiku under Takahama Kyoshi. In the early Showa era he was acclaimed as one of the 'Four S of Hototogisu' alongside Mizuhara Shuoshi, Awano Seiho, and Yamaguchi Seishi, drawing attention as the purest practitioner of objective realism. Considered the most faithful inheritor of Kyoshi's 'Kacho Fuei' (singing of flowers and birds), he left many famous poems gazing at the fine details of nature. After the war he lived long in Niigata, later moving to Nara. He died in Nara on October 4, 1976, at age 83.

Taciturn and upright, he brought the rigor of a forensic scientist to his haiku. He disliked ostentation and continued to observe nature quietly. Keeping his distance from literary politics, he devoted himself purely to the craft of the poem.

Of the 'Four S,' he embodied Kyoshi's ideal of objective realism most purely, becoming a foundation stone of later traditional haiku. His plain and unadorned style is still loved by beginners of the craft today. A literary archive room dedicated to him has been established in Toride City.