On 19^th July The Mainichi Daily News reported that a table used for autopsies on leprosy patients at the Oshimasishoen National Sanatorium had been lifted from the Japanese Inland Sea in early July 2010. Approximately twenty-five years ago, when the autopsy room was being demolished to make way for a new recovery wing, it had been thrown into the sea. This table is to be displayed at an art festival until the end of October 2010.

Oshima is one of the Inland Sea islands participating in the 2010 Setouchi International Arts Festival, during which islands put on exhibitions illustrating their culture and art, and what makes them unique. Oshima is distinctive for the isolation it represents; it is the only island in Japan to which people affected by leprosy were banished whose only other community has ever been a few fishermen. The sanitorium there remains the only one in Japan that is still accessible by boat only.

Since marking its centenary in 2009, the island Sanitorium of Oshima has been regularly in the news and has attracted the attention of a number of civil society organisations. Interest has been fuelled as this coincided with the passing of the Law on the Promotion of Issues Related to Hansen’s disease in that same year. One element of this Law called for the preservation of historic buildings and other items to promote a better understanding of leprosy.

Learning of this find under the sea, an Associate Professor at the Nagoya Zokei University of Art and Design, Nobuyuki Takahashi, wondered whether the table could be part of a “Yasashii Bijutsu Project” (“Kind Art Project”), a Project that could raise awareness of the lives lived by residents of the Sanitorium.

Professor Takahashi consulted Takahisa Yamamoto, a 77-year-old head of an organisation of former residents of the Sanitorium, who shared the views of the former residents that if the table were not shown just as an exhibit, but “…as something that stirs emotion in those who see it…” it could provide a valuable educational experience. 

The two metre table is now being incorporated into an exhibition in a café for visitors that is being set up within the former Sanitorium, and will be used to tell the story of the approximately 4,000 persons who lived and died on Oshima.

Dr Mitsuda was a pathologist who worked at the Tama Zensho-en in Tokyo. Since little was known about leprosy then, and there was no cure, he performed autopsies in the interests of scientific research. Dr Mitsuda’s handwritten atlas of the pathology of leprosy was much in demand during his lifetime, even outside Japan. In 1931, Dr Mitsuda opened another sanitorium the Nagashima Aisei-en. This is the setting for Jeff Talarigo’s novel The Pearl Diver about a teenager who discovers she has leprosy and has to change her name and forget her hopes for the future when she arrives at the sanitorium.

According to Mrs Kay Yamaguchi, who is on the Board of Directors of the Sasakawa Memorial Health Foundation, it is strongly believed in Japan that the stigma surrounding leprosy can be eradicated by learning from its nation’s heritage and history. Further it is to be hoped that assimilation of the challenges posed by stigma through such heritage advocacy can help prevent stigmatisation of other people for whatever reason in the future.

Setouichi International Art Festival:
http://japan-articles.japanican.com/en/articles/setouchi_art_festival.html?utm_source=press_release&utm_medium=press_release&utm_campaign=setouchi_pr

Japan: Law on Promotion of Issues Related to Hansen’s Disease
http://www.ilep.org.uk/news-events/article/view/japan-law-on-promotion-of-issues-related-to-hansens-disease/346/

Reviews of the The Pearl Diver by Jeff Talarigo
http://www.amazon.com/Pearl-Diver-Novel-Jeff-Talarigo/dp/0385510519   

Other island sanatoria in Japan

The Nagashima Aisei-en and Oku Komyo-en sanitoria were built on the same island just off the Honshu coast. A bridge was constructed to link this island to the mainland twenty years ago.

Amami Wako-en on Kyushu sanatorium was built on the island of Amami Oshima in Kagoshima prefecture.

The Airaku en in Okinawa used to be on an island, but is now connected to the mainland.

The Miyako Nansei-en was built on Miyako Island in Okinawa. 

Categories: Japan, News and Notes