He was born on June 7, 1867 to the home of a samurai in Kaga, Ishikawa, and his childhood name was Kohkichi Shoda (庄田 豊哉??

He graduated from Kanazawa Medical School, now the Faculty of Medicine, Kanazawa University in 1887, and entered the Department of Pathology at Tokyo University under Moriharu Miura (三浦 守治 Miura Moriharu).

Together with the pathologist Katsusaburo Yamagiwa and the internal medicine physician, he began study of paragonimiasis, a parasitic disease prevalent in Okayama.

On November 9, 1912, he was called to the Ministry of Education and suddenly dismissed, because Koreyoshi Kan,　the principal of the Medical School, envied his popularity and reported his criticism.

In November 1914, he formally quit the Okayama Medical School and assumed the presidency of the Hospital for Seamen and Tropical Disease Institute at Kobe with the donation by Tokugoro Nakahashi, the president of Osaka Shosen (Shippin Company).

In the same year, he encouraged the study of parasitology, and gave a fund which was named Katsurada Award.