was a Christian Japanese female physician who worked at

Kikuchi Keifuen Sanatorium Kikuchi Keifuen Sanatorium or National Sanatorium Kikuchi Keifuen is a sanatorium for leprosy patients or ex-leprosy patients at Kohshi-shi, Kumamoto-ken, Japan founded in 1909. The mean age of residents (ex-patients) is about eighty. History Ba ...

Okinawa Airakuen Sanatorium The Okinawa Airakuen Sanatorium (or National Sanatorium Okinawa Airakuen) is a sanatorium for current or former leprosy patients in Nago, Okinawa, Japan that was established in 1938. History History before the sanatorium Major events On Nov ...

and

Hoshizuka Keiaien Sanatorium Hoshizuka Keiaien Sanatorium, (National Sanatorium Hoshizuka Keiaien) is a sanatorium for leprosy patients or ex-leprosy patients in Kanoya-shi, kagoshima-ken, Japan which was established in 1935. History Background Following the establishment of ...

. In 1945, she was the head doctor under the director and survived extreme hardships with 7 nurses including chief nurse Chiyo Mikami at

Life

In 1904, she was born in Yatsushiro city, Kumamoto Prefecture and entered

Tokyo Women's Medical University , TWMU, is a private university in Tokyo, Japan. The University olso operates the Tokyo Women's Medical University Hospital within the campus, as well as a separate hospital in Yachiyo, Chiba. History TWMU originated from , which was founded b ...

in 1923. In 1926, she was baptized. She entered the Bible class with Fumiko Ohnishi and Chika Nawa who later became female physicians at Hansen's disease sanatoriums. In 1935, she worked at

under

Matsuki Miyazaki was a Japanese medical doctor, the director of the Kyushu Sanatorium (Kikuchi Keifuen Sanatorium) (1934–1958) in Kumamoto, Japan. He studied war and leprosy and found that stress was a great factor in the development of leprosy. He later establ ...

and in 1938 she went to

without the permission of

1945

In 1945, the war conditions worsened day by day. They dug air-raid shelters into the hard rocks and disabled patients had to live in the underground air-raid shelters. She was ordered to discard personal things and discarded her precious albums and waited for the last day. Three male workers of the Medical Section were drafted, never to return. There were 7 angels in white clothes, like 7 samurais in the battlefield, pursued their duties to the last. Between air-attacks, they went from one air-raid shelter to another. The sound of bombing made them crouch over patients, or rush to another shelter. The blackness of no-warning periods embraced the angels. She wrote the placing themselves in the extreme situations when they might be killed in another day, they felt the joy of surviving, a fact of unexplainable contradiction. "Cosmos no Hanakagede(1990) The Department of Dermatology, Tokyo Women's Medical University, Tokyo

Later life

In 1969, she worked at

and died on November 14, 1995.

Papers

*The histamine skin reaction in leprosy(1943). Okinawa Igakkai Zasshi, Vol.6 *Menstruation and neonates in Airakuen(1944). 18th Leprosy Congress(Kusatsu). *Leprosy in Okinawa after the war(1948). Repura 18.1.

Photographs

*At Okinawa Prefectural Archive, there were some photographs taken by the American troops.

Footnotes

References

*Cosmos no Hanakage de (1990) p46-62 The Department of Dermatology, Tokyo Women's University, Tokyo. in Japanese
松田ナミ
{{DEFAULTSORT:Matsuda, Nami Japanese leprologists Japanese leper hospital administrators Japanese dermatologists Japanese Christians 1904 births 1995 deaths People from Yatsushiro, Kumamoto