Hirokawa Waka
Nihon Hansenbyo Gakkai Zasshi. 2016 Aug;85(2):75-8.
This paper explores the history of Yunosawa Village for Hansen’s disease patients in Kusatsu Town, which is famous for its hot springs and located in a mountainous area of Gunma Prefecture, Japan. Yunosawa Village was initially formed by Kusatsu Town government as a settlement for a small number of patients in 1869, but later became the biggest “open leprosy colony” for Hansen’s disease patients in modern Japan. Patients in Yunosawa gradually constructed their own regional community and expanded their presence in Kusatsu as part of the town. Although townspeople in Kusatsu made several attempts to remove patients in Yunosawa to a more remote area away from the town center so that they would be out of sight of visitors, townspeople in Kusatsu had a long history of treating Hansen’s disease patients as customers of the hot springs, which enabled them to understand the nature of the disease through their own experience. This “folk epidemiology” created a “symbiotic” relationship between patients in Yunosawa and townspeople for nearly 60 years until the national government finally closed Yunosawa in 1941.
本文探讨了位于日本群马县山区、以温泉闻名的草津町汤之泽村作为麻风病患者聚居地的历史。汤之泽村最初由草津町政府于1869年作为少数患者的定居点而设立，但后来成为了现代日本最大的麻风病患者“开放隔离区”。汤之泽村的患者逐渐构建起了他们自己的区域社区，并作为草津町的一部分扩大了他们在草津的影响力。尽管草津町的居民多次试图将汤之泽村的患者转移到离镇中心更远的偏远地区，以使游客看不到他们，但草津町的居民长期以来一直将麻风病患者视为温泉的顾客，这使他们能够通过自身经历了解这种疾病的本质。这种“民间流行病学”在汤之泽村的患者和居民之间创造了近60年的“共生”关系，直到1941年国家政府最终关闭了汤之泽村。
