| Dr. Noguchi |
September 24, 2018
|
| When he went to this city on a business trip, using his spare time, he went to the Dr. Noguchi Memorial Museum. Dr. Noguchi was very famous in this country. He appeared in school textbooks. His face was printed on the banknotes. He made his contribution to the world as a bacteriologist. It was in the era when there were a lot of lethal diseases in the world. He willingly went to dangerous areas and studied them. He died in Africa while he was studying about 'yellow fever'. In the Museum premises, the house that he was born in and brought up in was preserved. Dr. Noguchi was born in a poor farming family. It was several years after the Edo samurai period finished. One day, when Dr. Noguchi was one year old, he was in a round bamboo basket. Other family members were working on the farm. He got out from the basket and to the fire place (burning charcoal was good for thatched roof's preservation, so there was a fire in all seasons) and touched the burning charcoal. By the horrible crying voice, the family members came and saw the infant's left hand curled into a ball. There was no doctor in the village, no money for the family to give the infant surgery. The mother had to cry regretting to leave him alone. But the mother wasn't the person who just kept crying. When Dr. Noguchi entered a school, she told him that he must study hard and get a  job that he would use his brain instead of his hands. Herself she worked hard ~not only for farming, housewife, but also delivering heavy loads to earn money for his education, even during snowy days. Always, looking at his mother's back, he studied hard. His teacher and friends felt sympathy about his crippled hand, so they gathered donations for a surgery. After the surgery on his hand, he was able to recover certain functions. It was miraculous! He then decided to be a doctor. With his efforts and support of his mother and acquaintances, he became a doctor and went to America to study about bacteria, the causes of diseases. Thanks to his intensive experiments, he discovered some new bacteria and started to become famous. He belonged to one of the major medical institutions and his name spread in the world of medicine. He worked hard, his fellow scientist wondered when he slept. He went to various countries to research and sometimes developed new vaccines. Because of this, he got awards from countries like Spain, Denmark, Sweden, France, Peru, etc. He was nominated several times for the Nobel Award. People were in gratitude to him for his work as he went to places that lethal diseases were spread. But when he was experimenting about 'yellow fever' in Africa, 'yellow fever' killed him. He was 51. One thing in the exhibition that impressed him was Dr. Noguchi's mother's letter. The characters of the mother's letter were very poor, like a small child's writing. She didn't get enough education. She wrote like she was talking to her son in person. At the last part she repeated "Please come back early" three times, and then finished by writing, "This is my favor that I ask of you from the bottom of my heart." Dr. Noguchi came back home soon after receiving the letter for the first time in 15 years. After watching the exhibition, he had two questions about Dr. Noguchi. Dr. Noguchi was said to say at his death bed, "I don't understand." to his fellow doctor Young. What did this mean? The second question was how he felt when his mother died of Spanish Flu. He had worked hard to save people from that infectious disease, but he couldn't save his mother. Later he searched about those. He got the last conversation between Dr. Noguchi and Dr. Young: In a letter home, Young states, "He died suddenly noon Monday. I saw him Sunday afternoon - he smiled - and amongst other things, said, "Are you sure you are quite well?" "Quite." I said, and then he said "I don't understand." ~Seven days later, Young himself died of yellow fever. Maybe Dr. Noguchi wondered why only himself contracted yellow fever, as they worked together all the time. For the second question: Dr. Noguchi insisted on bacteria. Some doctors studied about only viruses, this was a new genre. Dr. Noguchi somehow made a distance from this. As he became famous, he became aggressive and pushy about his studies and so, he became isolated from others little by little. His mother died of Spanish Flu. It was because of a virus. Dr. Noguchi died of yellow fever, which was because of a virus. It was said that he started to guess of their existence, but he couldn't admit it. Anyways, he got more information about him: ・Dr. Noguchi's father was a heavy drinker, and his mother had to work for a living. ・Dr. Noguchi borrowed a lot of money for his studies, but used some of it on himself. He even used some donations for going to brothels. ・He borrowed money from his previous Japanese fiancee's father, but eventually didn't marry her. He said to his friend that she was ugly. His American wife was a beautiful person from the picture in the museum. Maybe the museum couldn't mention about this part; and, of course, textbooks for kids couldn't either. But, at the end of the tour, he felt that he understood Dr. Noguchi a little bit more, the real him not an illusion. He had a feeling that if he studied his background more that he could understand Dr. Noguchi more, and would respect him even more. |
| |
*bacteriologist :細菌学者
*lethal :致死の
*thatched :茅葺の
*crippled :手足などの部自由な
*vaccine :ワクチン
*contract :感染する、契約
*brothel :売春宿