was a surgeon at the

Red Cross The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is a Humanitarianism, humanitarian movement with approximately 97 million Volunteering, volunteers, members and staff worldwide. It was founded to protect human life and health, to ensure re ...

hospital in

Hiroshima is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture in Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 1,199,391. The gross domestic product (GDP) in Greater Hiroshima, Hiroshima Urban Employment Area, was US$61.3 billion as of 2010. Kazumi Matsui h ...

and was situated 1,650 yards from the

hypocenter In seismology, a hypocenter or hypocentre () is the point of origin of an earthquake or a subsurface nuclear explosion. A synonym is the focus of an earthquake. Earthquakes An earthquake's hypocenter is the position where the strain energy s ...

of the

Little Boy "Little Boy" was the type of atomic bomb dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 during World War II, making it the first nuclear weapon used in warfare. The bomb was dropped by the Boeing B-29 Superfortress ''Enola Gay'' p ...

explosion on August 6, 1945. Twenty-five years old that year, out of an initial 30 interviewed, he became one of the six central characters found in

John Hersey John Richard Hersey (June 17, 1914 – March 24, 1993) was an American writer and journalist. He is considered one of the earliest practitioners of the so-called New Journalism, in which storytelling techniques of fiction are adapted to n ...

's 1946 story for ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

'' magazine that was subsequently published as the book ''

.'' He lived at his family home in Mukaihara district prior to the detonation and practiced medicine in communities with poor health care without a permit. After the detonation occurred, he was one of the first to observe, document, and attempt to treat "atomic bomb sickness," now known as acute radiation syndrome. Dr. Sasaki led intensive research into the syndrome in the weeks and months after the bombing, leading to the establishment of three recorded stages of the syndrome. Within 25 to 30 days of the explosion, Sasaki noticed a sharp drop in white blood cell count and established this drop, along with symptoms of fever, as prognostic standards for Acute Radiation Syndrome. In the years afterward he would become one of the leading surgeons continuing to document and treat the ''

Hibakusha ''Hibakusha'' ( or ; ja, 被爆者 or ; "person affected by a bomb" or "person affected by exposure o radioactivity) is a word of Japanese origin generally designating the people affected by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at th ...

'' (explosion-affected) community, serving as an important source of knowledge for the

Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission The Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission (ABCC) (Japanese:原爆傷害調査委員会, ''Genbakushōgaichōsaiinkai'') was a commission established in 1946 in accordance with a presidential directive from Harry S. Truman to the National Academy of Sc ...

, and later

Radiation Effects Research Foundation The Radiation Effects Research Foundation (RERF) is a joint U.S.-Japan research organization responsible for studying the medical effects of radiation and associated diseases in humans for the welfare of the survivors and all humankind.Introduction ...

, who began and continue the Life Span Study of atomic bomb survivors, respectively.

Dosage

The gamma ray dose received by a set of photographic film, and therefore those within the reinforced concrete Red Cross building at Hiroshima, was approximately 15

rad RAD or Rad may refer to: People * Robert Anthony Rad Dougall (born 1951), South African former racing driver * Rad Hourani, Canadian fashion designer and artist * Nickname of Leonardus Rad Kortenhorst (1886–1963), Dutch politician * Radley R ...

on the third floor.https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1327999-attempt-measure-gamma-radiation-dosage-hiroshima-from-photosensitive-material An Attempt to Measure the Gamma Radiation Dosage at Hiroshima from Photosensitive Material

References

External links

"Character" Analysis Dr. Terufumi Sasaki
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sasaki, Terufumi Japanese surgeons Living people Hibakusha Radiation accidents and incidents Year of birth missing (living people)