SURGEON'S WAR EXPERIENCES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 12760, 10 January 1905, Page 7

SURGEON'S WAR EXPERIENCES.

SIDELIGHTS ON THE JAPANESE SOLDIER. The following are extracts from an extremely interesting article by a Japanese military surgeon, translated and edited by Mr. Aaaslii Kinnosuke: — "How is it with you, the Red Cross people? Have you not bad a number of casualties even among your people in this war?" said Field-Marshal Ova ma to me on, hi.-) way to the front. And, indeed, in the violence of their zeal Russian bullets have paid nut a few compliments to the headquarters of the Red Cross. It was little past seven o'clock on lieevening of the 2411 iof July, and the place was near Tashichiao, in the. village of raping. That was the time and that was the place where 1 received my first wound. 'J he battle was savage, and the shots that fell round about the field hospital were quite thick. From all over the battlefield came the call for the surgeon. I was stooping over a soldier who was severely wounded. I had my back to the enemy's fire. My brave fellow was shot in his right leg. I was doing what- 1 could for him. At the time I was at peace with most people, and till the gods, thinking I was engaged in a good work. I was somewhat surprised, therefore, by a. sudden visit from a Russian bullet just at that time. I felt as if somebody had taken a stout iron rod to me with a certain degree of violence. Not in the least did I suspect that I was .shot. The first news that 1 was wounded came from an army nurse, a man whom I knew very well, and who is called Fukazawa. I.saw him rush.over the wounded and the bloodstained battlefield toward me. Bandages were Hying from iiis hand, his eyes were wild. He seemed to be very much excited, and lie was scandalised to lind that I was perfectly innocent of the fact that- I was hit. Ho went for my wound as if his very life were dependant upon it. Tho war has wrought many singular changes in our soldiers. . At home, in camp, it has been the experience of all of us surgeons to find a soldier here and there who would come with a plausible story of some complaint from which ho was suffering. He would ask for "a statement from us that ho might be excused from the daily exercise. Now, upon the battlefield the contrary is the fact. Our men, who are indifferent both to the Russian bullet and to hostile swords, they who laugh at the Russian mines and barbed-wire fences, and delight in joking frivolously about death, seem to ha afraid of one thing: they are afraid of being suspected of being ill fit all. They know that when a man is .sick he is denied the pleasure and distinction of lighting in the first line of battle. The other day I came upon a man who was carrying four bullets within him. I. said to him, seeing his clothes were bloody, "'What is the matter? Are you not wounded?" He turned to me with a, smile and said. "Oh. 110, not at. all. sir: I am perfectly well." 1 saw him limp. I laid a violent hand upon him and subjected him to an examination. As I have said, I found four bullets in his body. ] meet with just such a case a hundred times more or less every day. They shun the surgeon as they would the very demon, and it is very much more difficult to discover a man who is ill than a man carrying four bullets. Not a single soldier has come to us and complained of his illness. Always they have taken care to conceal the first symptoms of disease, and by the time the medical 1 men are able to find out that a man is ill . he finds his patient completely beyond the | assistance of medical science. This is work- j ing hardship upon our men and upon our j hospital corps. Men who could have been | cured in the earlier stages of their illness j arc dying from this peculiar attitude of the \ Nippon soldier. To see him in his endeav- i our to remain in the fighting line, and it- j matters little whether he is mortally wound- ; ed 01 seriously ill, you would say that the j Nippon soldier is certainly insane. To tight, 1 every minute of the day and night seems I to be the one thing he wants. He is a j casuist of the purest- water. He troubles : himself very little as to the methods, so j long as the end in view i.s attained. He ! taxes his wit to the utmost. He seems j to put in all his lonely hours in the lull of lighting to frame many plausible yarns with which to blind the searching eyes of his superior officers and surgeons in their attempt to discover a sign of illness or of wounds that he might ho carrying and from which he is dying. -Many oi these white lies bring tears to most of us. Even when they are amusing in their lameness, the tales they tell throw more light for the student of the Nippon soldier than any heavy volume of official reports. As if we have not enough to do, therefore, we are obliged to keep our eyes sharply upon every private bo that we may catch him in his uiiEuarded moment and save him in spite of himself. The effect of the first wound or two on I our soldier is rather .striking. Instead of stopping him, they invariably help to fire him with enthusiasm and to increase his energy. I have no psychological explanation to account for this singular phenomenon. As a matter of fact, I simply jot down my observation that almost every soldier who receives a wound seems to rush forward with double the energy and enthusiasm toward: the hostile positions. Many a time have 1 myself heard a .soldier rushing forward with the cry, "Bosky, yon brutes! Wait a minute! We will show you a thing or two!" And invariably, whenever I hear this cry, I know that the soldier who is rushing past me is wounded. As a simple statement of fact I may be permitted to put down here that, in the minds of our soldier boys, the field hospital is a Hades, compared to which the desperate hand-to-hand fighting with the Russian is a rather entertaining Paradise. It was yesterday that T actually stumbled over a soldier. lie was down on the ground. So severely bad he been wounded that he could not. continue his forward march. I said to him: Here, my man, you are wounded. Let 111.0 call a stretcher. You have no time to lose in making your way to the hospital." In answer he turned his face to me and laughed out loud, and said: "Why, sir, there is nothing he matter with me at all. Is it possible that the august presence is so blind as not to see that I am resting a. bit? I had to run a great deal, and 1 am somewhat tired: that is all. Wait a. minute, then you will see how I will get at those Russians, and you will be thoroughly satisfied that- I am its healthy as the" next- man." Do you know that* the men of the hospital and myself had actually to use physical force to get this follow upon the stretcher aiid carry him to the rear?