information about Fukushima published in English in Japanese media info publiée en anglais dans la presse japonaise
5 Août 2013
August 4, 2013
Long-lost medical records detailing the sharply deteriorating health of the world’s first recognized radiation sickness patient have been recovered 68 years after the victim died within weeks of being exposed to the atomic bomb in Hiroshima.
The patient, Midori Naka, a stage actress, died 18 days after she was injured in the nuclear blast on Aug. 6, 1945. She was staying in Hiroshima as part of a traveling theater troupe.
After returning to Tokyo a few days later, Naka died while undergoing treatment, which included blood transfusions, at the University of Tokyo Hospital. She was 36.
The discovery came after decades of efforts by researchers to locate her missing records.The hospital kept updates of her condition leading up to her death and the results of her autopsy.
But other vital records have been missing until their recent recovery.
Kazuhiko Maekawa, professor emeritus with the University of Tokyo who is expert in treating patients suffering from radiation exposure, hailed the discovery of Naka’s medical records.
“She apparently died of sepsis in the end after the infectious disease spread all over her body,” he said. “The records are invaluable as those reporting in detail on changes in her health condition after she was exposed to a fatal level of radiation.”
One of the researchers searching for Naka's records was Shiro Shirato, a medical student at the University of Tokyo in August 1945, who helped conduct a blood test on Naka. He also took part in her autopsy. Shirato died three years ago at age 87.
His widow, Keiko Shirato, 83, who resides in Ayase, Kanagawa Prefecture, said she was relieved to learn of the recovery of Naka's medical records.
“If my husband were still alive, he would have been rejoicing over the news,” she said.
Naka was about 750 meters from ground zero at a Hiroshima lodging facility where her traveling troupe was staying. After she was severely injured in the blast, she managed to return to Tokyo, where she was born and raised.
The recovered records showed the results of her blood tests, a chart of her body temperatures and the treatment she underwent until her death, along with diagnoses of her illness as radiation disease.
Family members of those who were involved in her treatment, who have passed away, discovered the documents. The Asahi Shimbun interviewed university officials who authenticated the medical records as Naka's.
Symptoms that Naka developed and the results of her autopsy were described in reports compiled by the Science Council of Japan. They were also quoted in reports on the impact of the atomic bombing that were taken to the United States after the U.S. military translated the original Japanese documents into English.
But most of the original records had been missing until the recent discovery. Some researchers speculated that the U.S. occupying forces took them to the United States.
Others believed that Japanese officials hid them out of fear of U.S. forces seizing the data. The recent find ruled out U.S. involvement behind the loss of the records.
According to the newly discovered documents, Naka was in the kitchen of the lodging around 8 a.m. on Aug. 6, some 15 minutes before the detonation of the atomic bomb. She told doctors that she saw a flash of yellow light two meters square shortly after and heard a noise akin to the bursting of a hot water boiler.
When she was pulled from the wreckage, she found herself in only her underwear and with injuries all over her body.
Feeling strong nausea, Naka vomited. After she entered a river to flee from a raging fire in the neighborhood, she was rescued and taken to a camp for survivors. Five of the nine members of her troupe, which she had joined in January 1945 to give performances for workers at munitions factories, were later found to have been killed instantly.
With no medical treatment provided at the camp, Naka, wrapping herself in a sheet of straw mat, managed to board the first train bound for Tokyo after the blast. She arrived in the capital in the early hours of Aug. 10. She was admitted to the University of Tokyo Hospital on Aug. 16.
The records showed that her white blood cell counts were down to 400 per cubic millimeter of blood, less than 10 percent of their normal level.
Naka began losing clumps of hair the following day. Her injuries on her back sharply worsened.
On Aug. 21, her body temperature rose to nearly 40 degrees. She received blood transfusions.
Her white blood cell counts dropped further to 300 per cubic mm on Aug. 22. Infectious ulcers formed around her injuries. She underwent more blood transfusions.
On Aug. 23, she developed infectious ulcers around the spot where she had a shot and hemorrhagic macules--the size of rice grains--all over her body. Additional blood transfusions followed.
Her body temperature rose to 40.4 degrees on Aug. 24. She died at 12:30 p.m. that day.
In 1945, little was known about the health hazards of exposure to massive levels of radiation.
Masao Tsuzuki, professor of surgery at the university who treated her, was one of only a handful of Japanese doctors familiar with radiology. He diagnosed her illness as radiation disease.
“Before, the consequences of an atomic bomb were believed to be the destruction by a blast and burns left by the ray of heat,” he said in an Asahi Shimbun article dated Aug. 29, 1945. “It was proved, however, in addition to those, an atomic bomb causes harm as a result of ‘radioactive substances.’ ”
Kenji Kamiya, professor of radiology at the Research Institute for Radiation Biology and Medicine with Hiroshima University, estimated that Naka had been exposed to a radiation dose of more than 8,000 millisieverts, given her symptoms and her proximity to the hypocenter of the explosion.
That level of exposure is fatal to humans, according to experts.
Shiro Shirato began his search for Naka's missing records more than 30 years after her death, after reading a letter in the Letters to the Editor section of The Asahi Shimbun’s Feb. 26, 1978, edition.
In the letter, Hagie Ezu, a younger colleague of Naka, asked for readers’ cooperation in gathering details of Naka’s condition while she was in the Tokyo hospital. Ezu was 67 when she wrote the letter.
After corresponding with Ezu many times, Shirato made arrangements for her to view part of Naka's medical records remaining at the university to help her effort.
Shirato also went to the United States to look for Naka’s other medical records at the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington, but to no avail.
Ezu wrote the letter to the editor after she took part in a memorial service marking the 33rd anniversary of the death of the members of the Sakuratai (Cherry unit) troupe in 1977.
With few accounts left about Naka, she decided to launch her own research to publish in 1980 a book on the tragedy of the troupe, with Naka at the center of the story.
The book, titled “Sakuratai Zenmetsu” (The annihilation of the cherry unit), was later adapted into the 1988 movie “Sakuratai Chiru” (The annihilation of the cherry unit), by director Kaneto Shindo, who has shot a number of anti-war films.
Ezu’s son, Heita, a 74-year-old resident of Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture, said his mother embarked on her book project to keep Naka's memory alive.
“She believed that somebody should pass the memory of Naka’s life to succeeding generations to keep it from being buried in history,” he said.
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