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in this room will ever know. She turns her head away, but when Mr. Mimura places the severed left hand on top of the man’s chest, she looks again, and they all stand there waiting for his body to be slid into the furnace.
    ARTIFACT Number 0151
A photo of Health Minister Tsujino and
the thirteen heads of the nation’s leprosaria
Tokyo, Japan, June 25, 1949
    Sitting around the oval-shaped table, a thicket of suits. Clockwise: Dr. Nishi, Dr. Yoshimura, Dr. Etoh, Dr. Barayama, Dr. Nomura, Dr. Ishihashi, Dr. Oishi, Dr. Nakamori, Dr. Saitoh, Dr. Wakabayashi, Dr. Yamashita, Dr. Fujita, Dr. Ikuta. At the head of the table, Dr. Tsujino, director of the Ministry of Health.
    Cigarette smoke already pushed to the ceiling settles back down near their heads. Health Minister Tsujino has to squint through the fog in order to see the other thirteen men in the room. He gives a deep bow toward the top of the table before speaking, nearly touching his teacup with his head.
    “With the development of the Promin drug, and its very positive results in stopping the progression of the disease, we can now cope with the future. We must begin thinking about releasing some of the patients. At least the ones who have recently been admitted.”
    A hush hovers. Minister Tsujino waits, takes a couple of sips from his now-tepid green tea, then waits some more before giving another bow and speaking again.
    “This drug is what we have been searching for—for a long time. A chance to get rid of this disease. Conditions now are considerably different from what they were forty years ago, when we had to quarantine the patients. Considerably different from even a year ago. It may be time to change the Leprosy Prevention Law. Each one of you should begin immediately compiling a list of your most recent patients, starting with those admitted since the beginning of 1946, and also those who have only mild cases of the disease.
With them, at least many of the physical scars aren’t so noticeable. They should be able to be reintroduced into society. If not their own communities, then at least some other place.”
    Again, when he stops talking, there is nothing but silence. It is shattered this time, shortly after he stops.
    “We can’t subject the citizens of this nation to these people. Imagine the panic that would spread. It would be a calamity,” says Dr. Nishi.
    “But if we release only those whose disease hasn’t progressed, treat them with the drug as outpatients. Other countries have started implementing this policy. We have nearly seventeen thousand patients in our facilities. If we can release even forty, fifty percent of them in the near future, think of all the money that could be saved. Some of the smaller facilities could even be shut down; the remaining patients at those facilities could be transferred to the larger ones. Up here. Down in Nagashima, Kagoshima, Kumamoto.”
    “You’re not thinking of the greater good of the people. Our own Dr. Mitsuda’s theory, back in 1931, clearly states that these people should be isolated from society. States that clearly. His theory is internationally known.”
    “All due respect to Dr. Mitsuda, whom I have known for many years now, back to the days when he was director at Nagashima, and I have much admiration for him, but his theory of isolating patients was before the introduction of Promin. This drug changes that. The theory, as correct as it was at the time, ceases to apply today.”
    “We have been using this drug for less than two years. We can’t go releasing them into society. Have you seen some of these people? They would be ridiculed for the rest of their lives. And what about them going and getting married and having children?”
    “Yes, of course I’ve seen them, Dr. Nishi. That’s why we should slowly release them. The best patients first. Some of them have almost no physical signs of the disease. As for them starting families, we have the Eugenics Law enacted last year; that can deal