Book records effects of; Hiroshima bomb

Press, 6 August 1981, Page 16

Book records effects of; Hiroshima bomb

By

DONALD KIRK

One turns the pages with a morbid fascination for the facts'and figures, then for the clinical, academic accounts of the suffering and finally for some comprehension of the enormity of it all. “Injury by exposure to an atomic bomb first occurred in August, 1945, at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.’ observe the authors. The ef-. fects, they add, “are still in evidence."

The deadpan style increases the devastating impact of “Hiroshima; and Nagasaki — the Physical, Medical and Social Effects of the Atomic Bombings.’’ The book was written in Japanese by a committee of scholars and is coming out in English on August 6, the 36th anniversary of Hiroshima. Only occasionally does the committee, financed by the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with no assistance from

in Tokyo

central Government of other sources, permit emotion to distract from the much more powerful recital of detail. One such “lapse” occurs in a passage on microcephalies — a term denoting “a head circumference less than two standard deviations below the r age-and-sex specific mean head size” and “frequently accompanied by mental retardation.” Anyone meeting “these unfor--tunate microcephalies,” says ■ the passage, “has no alternative but to consider the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to have been a crime.”

Microcephaly was but one of a number of possible fates inflicted on unborn children. Myopia, dislocation of joints, mongolism, funnel chest and a range of infectious diseases were — and are — common complaints among the first

generation after the bombings. The accomplishment of the book is to have gathered together the hideous facts between one set of covers. The result is a work of more than. 700 pages -that serves as a reference, a textbook, a history and perhaps a lesson for anyone interested in any aspect of the double holocaust.

Mr David Swain; an American who translated the second half of the book, says: “If one looks at the damage and the data, one cannot see any meaningful purpose to survival when one sees the weapons available today.” For the book to have maximum effect on the current arms race, says Mr Swain, editor of the “Japan Christian Quarterly,” “I hope the next translation will be in Russian.” So far the Japanese publisher, Iwanami Shoten,. has sold the rights to Harper and Row in New York and Hutchinson in London.

Despite its technical approach. "Hiroshima and. Nagasaki” seems assured of a wide sale to universities and anti-war groups. The book is in four major parts — “Physical Aspects of Destruction." “Injury to the Human Body.” "The Impact on Society and Daily Life,” and “Toward the Abolition of Nuclear Arms.” Charts, graphs, footnotes and the bibliography indicate the depth of research. ....

Perhaps the book's greatest contribution lies in its investigation of the long-range aftereffects. The extent of the tragedy seems to emerge more clearly each year with the diagnosis of new cases of cancer and leukaemia as well as an accerlation of ageing. The most disturbing question, still unanswered, may be whether the effect of radiation mutation is transmittable through the genes to future generations. Not the least difficult problem in analysing the social J.

effects is simply to compute the number of casualties, For all the precise figures one sees from time to time, the authors explain that the real number of deaths is not known. The best they can do is to compare population losses and gains, to survey survivors — and then conclude that “deaths in the five years from the bombings to 1950 amount to some 200,000 for Hiroshima and over 140,000 for Nagasaki.” Still less precise are the individual tales of communal suffering: “Whole families wiped out ... others deprived of key members ... the normal bonds of family life so ruptured that innumberable households are doomed to serious breakdown, if not to total disintegration.”

Atomic bomb victims have had fewer prospects for jobs and marriages than the average Japanese, lower incomes and have sometimes drifted into near-povertv and emo-

tional instability. “By 1975 the percentage of A-bomb victim households depending on salaried jobs dropped below the national level,” says the book, “while the percentage of victims engaged in farming rose, and victims without paying jobs exceeded their non-victim counterparts by 70 per cent” For many the end result is a loneliness that may be worse than death. And there is always the gnawing fear of leukaemia or some other illness appear-' ing. The victims “had to fend for themselves, and they made one mistake after another," says a chapter on psychological patterns. “The uncertainties of the future, therefore, often turned their hopes into despair." The books exhaustive analysis and case studies form the most damning indictment so far of the men who decided to drop the atomic bomb.—Copyright, London Observer Service.