The Physical Growth and Development of Children Who Survived the Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima or Nagasaki

Format is approximately 7 inches by 10 inches. Stamp and ink notation on front. [2], 121-145, [1] pages. Illustrations. Footnotes. Figures. Tables. References. In the summer of 1947, under the auspices of the National Research Council's Committee on Atomic Casualties and with' the cooperation of the Public Health and Welfare Section of SCAP and of the Japanese National Institute of Health, two of us (W. W. G. and M. L. G.) made a preliminary survey of the physical growth and developmental status of children who had survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The data which we obtained included some physical measurements and x-ray films of the hand and wrist and of various other joint areas of children from the first six grades of elementary schools of those two cities. Comparable anthropometric and roentgenological observations were made also on children in Kure and Sasebo, who served as controls for those in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively. The population of each control city was considered to be sufficiently similar to that of the city with which it was compared to justify the assumption that any significant difference in physical status between the children of a control and of an exposed city might reasonably be ascribed to the direct or indirect effects of the atomic bombing to which the latter had been subjected. Dr. Frederick Snell, who was conducting some hematological studies for the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission, aided greatly in our work in 1947, both by helping to obtain access to children and in arranging for X-ray and supplies needed in our project The authors were associated with the Department of Anatomy, Stanford School of Medicine, Stanford University. Many Japanese Americans documented their own experiences from within the camps. One of these incarceree photographers was Yoshio Okumoto in Heart Mountain. Okumoto was born on the island of Hawai i in 1903. He attended Stanford University and was working as a biology lab assistant when he was forcibly removed to Santa Anita in 1942. Upon arriving at Heart Mountain, he was assigned to a shared barrack with two roommates—one of whom was a photographer who recruited him to help take photos of events in the camp. In 1945, Okumoto returned to Stanford and spent the remainder of his career studying the effects of the atomic bomb on hibakusha. After his death, friends discovered thousands of photos of his time at the Wyoming concentration camp in a box under his bed. Reprinted from The Journal of Pediatrics Vol. 43, No. 2, August 1953, pages 121-145.…