Part One:
The character I find most interesting is Dr. Terufumi Sasaki, the Red Cross Hospital surgeon. After the bombing, he was the only doctor in Hiroshima that was well and able to operate. The Red Cross Hospital only has a 600 bed occupancy and he welcomed about 10,000 injured civilians. I think that alone, says a lot about his character. He was willing to help and he wanted to save people's lives. On page 26 in the first paragraph it says, "Dr. Sasaki lost all sense of profession and stopped working as a skillful surgeon and sympathetic man; he became a automaton, mechanically wiping, daubing, winding, wiping, daubing, winding." I think this says a lot about him, meaning--he usually is skillful and sympathetic, but because of the situation, he had to become just a machine.
Part Two:
Really, I just want to know more about nuclear weapon proliferation and use. I don't know much about it. I mean, I know it's problem and I had heard about Hiroshima before we read about it in class. My stand is more on the effects on the body, however. Seeing as I am interested in the medical side of things, I wanted to know; what are the main after-affects of radiation exposure? This is what I found:"If a population receives a radiation dose of 100 rem in a short period of time, we expect health effects in some of the people who were exposed. However, many who receive a dose at that level will not have any long-lasting health effects." Basically, like most things, it doesn't do much harm at low levels. But, over a longer period of time it can cause major health problems after a delay such as cancer and other health outcomes such as benign tumors, cataracts, and potentially harmful genetic changes.
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| This is cutaneous radiation on a hand |
Image from: https://emergency.cdc.gov/radiation/criphysicianfactsheet.asp
Text from: http://www.radiationanswers.org/radiation-and-me/effects-of-radiation.html
I like how you highlighted the fact that Dr. Sasaki was indeed a kind hearted and skilled surgeon. I feel like its a description that could easily be missed and something that I missed myself when typing my journal about him. I also think the image you used was very useful in showing the effects of the radiation over a short period of time.
ReplyDeleteI am also curious about the effects of radiation to the human body. As we read in chapter four, civilians began to lose their hair, were vomiting, had high fevers, and suffered from spot hemorrages, which is also more than likely a short term effect of radiation. I am curious to see if the long term effects of radiation will be mentioned in "Hiroshima," such as if any of the survivors had suffered from cancer after the immense amount of radiation exposure.
ReplyDeleteI personally thought the "machine" metaphor was cool. He was a a kind-hearted man and he just seemed to put everything aside even his training as a surgeon and become that machine. It's just one of those reactions after a traumatic occurrence to shut down everything. Seemed strong to be able to overcome it as well.
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