Great Construction

Brief Comment—A Celebrated Doctor, the Late Tatsukichi Irisawa

     One of the opinions of the late Dr. Tatsukichi Irisawa was that doctors cannot eat unless they resort to trickery. I think this is aptly put. Well said because doctors have to say patients will be cured when they know those in their care will not be cured, doctors have to pretend to know what kind of disease patients have when they do not. Doctors would not be able to earn a living if they acted conscientiously. Actually though, such behavior is not limited to doctors. As there is nothing within society that does not involve some sort of fraud or trickery, it may be rather mean-spirited to condemn only doctors.
     Dr. Irisawa also said, “If doctors disappeared, sick people would disappear.” Whether this statement is penetratingly clear-sighted or not, I leave to those who study the situation. Interesting is the doctor’s deathbed statement, “Even though I knew the medicine was not efficacious, because it was my duty, I gave it to my patients to ingest. Now I take that medicine.”

Hikari, Issue 23, August 20, 1949
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