Today’s Very First Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
Midori Naka was well-known as a stage actress in her native Japan, but upon her death at 36, she achieved a grim kind of immortality. When Naka died on August 24, 1945, she became the very first person in the world to have as her official cause of death “radiation poisoning.” This poisoning was a direct result of Naka having been in Hiroshima when it was atom-bombed on August 6.
Culled from: Wikipedia
Submitted by: Aimee
I did some additional research and found that they recently discovered the missing medical documents related to Naka. Here’s the description of her awful death from The Asahi Shimbun:
“According to the newly discovered documents, Naka was in the kitchen of the lodging around 8 a.m. on Aug. 6, some 15 minutes before the detonation of the atomic bomb. She told doctors that she saw a flash of yellow light two meters square shortly after and heard a noise akin to the bursting of a hot water boiler.
“When she was pulled from the wreckage, she found herself in only her underwear and with injuries all over her body.
“Feeling strong nausea, Naka vomited. After she entered a river to flee from a raging fire in the neighborhood, she was rescued and taken to a camp for survivors. Five of the nine members of her troupe, which she had joined in January 1945 to give performances for workers at munitions factories, were later found to have been killed instantly.
“With no medical treatment provided at the camp, Naka, wrapping herself in a sheet of straw mat, managed to board the first train bound for Tokyo after the blast. She arrived in the capital in the early hours of Aug. 10. She was admitted to the University of Tokyo Hospital on Aug. 16.
“The records showed that her white blood cell counts were down to 400 per cubic millimeter of blood, less than 10 percent of their normal level.
“Naka began losing clumps of hair the following day. Her injuries on her back sharply worsened.
“On Aug. 21, her body temperature rose to nearly 40 degrees. She received blood transfusions.
“Her white blood cell counts dropped further to 300 per cubic mm on Aug. 22. Infectious ulcers formed around her injuries. She underwent more blood transfusions.
“On Aug. 23, she developed infectious ulcers around the spot where she had a shot and hemorrhagic macules–the size of rice grains–all over her body. Additional blood transfusions followed.
“Her body temperature rose to 40.4 degrees on Aug. 24. She died at 12:30 p.m. that day.”
Ghastly!
Here’s a photo from the most recent addition to the Library Eclectica: Malformed: Forgotten Brains of the Texas State Mental Hospital. I’m not familiar with the spelling “Makrencephalia” but I believe it’s the same as Macrencephaly – which is having an overly-large brain. Sadly, there isn’t a lot of information to go with most of these photos. They are former patients of the mental hospital who have been long-forgotten.
Creepy Curio Du Jour!
Who wouldn’t love to have an olde-tyme obstetrician’s kit in their collection? Thanks to Eleanor for sending this lovely photo my way!
If you have a morbid curio you’d like to share, please send it to the Comtesse!