Hannah Riddell

Hannah Riddell

By Shota Inoue

Life of Riddell

Hannah Riddell was a British woman who devoted her life to caring for patients of leprosy in Japan. When she was younger, she and her mother established private school, because they need money. The school sometimes succeeded, but in 1889 it went into bankruptcy. Then, her next job was as superintendent for the YMCA (Young Women’s Christian Association). In 1890, she was selected as missionary to Japan. At the same time, she heard about Japan from her friend. She got good impression of Japan. Therefore, she decided to go to Japan.

In 1891, she saw the leper at the Honmyoji temple in Kumatmoto. When she saw the leper begging for mercy (like “help me”), she made up her mind to devote her life to their care. She decided to establish Kaishun hospital. Then, she did donation work. But Japanese didn't know about her. She behaved like upper class and attended upper class party. She was also supported by British, in and 1895 Kaishun hospital was complete. Next she set the policy, but she was not doctor. She didn't know about leprosy and way of cure. At that time nobody also knew about that. She thought that the best way of cure for leprosy was sexual abstinence and to quarantine these patients in Kaishun hospital. Because she didn't like sexual relations, and her idea is that men and women didn't get along with each other.

In 1918 she established institute (lab) of leprosy in Kaishun hospital, thanks to a lot of donations. Plenty of famous persons donated to this hospital, because Riddell made efforts for helping leper. She gathered scholars and doctors to search and look for a remedy. She was sometimes greedy, but lepers had good impression of her, because although many people despised lepers, she interacted with them with a smile. After her death, the effort was continued by niece “Ada Hannah Wright”.

Summary of discussion

My questions were “If you were healthy person in this time, would you help the leper?” and “What do you think was the best kind of cure?”

My discussion member’s idea is to help them. It stands to reason that people should help them, because we are people. If you help the leper, you might be ignored by other healthy person. Most people are influenced by others but some people have a strong heart.

We don’t know about leprosy and medical science. Maybe we would try to do donation work and encourage to them. We would also establish medical facility. And then, we spread that the leprosy is safe.

The discussion is important for me, because member’s views were different from mine. I can soak up other information.



Reflection

I think Riddell was great person, because in this time most of people ignored and despised lepers, but she devoted her life to caring for them. Then, nobody knew whether this flu infected other people or not. In addition, Japan is not her hometown, but she helped them. Thanks to her efforts, all of Japanese minds was becoming better for medical treatment. Therefore, Japanese government attached importance to the medical treatment and supported medical facilities. Now Japan has good medical technologies.

References
“Hannah Riddell” Wikipedia, accessed July, 2014
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannah_Riddell

“Hannah Riddell by Jingo Tamotsu”, accessed July, 2014
http://anglicanhistory.org/asia/jp/riddell1937/text.html

Hannah Riddell

Hannah Riddell

By Kana Suzuki

Hannah Riddell was a British woman who saved many Japanese patients. But her job was not a doctor. When she came to Japan, she was shocked by Japanese situation for a certain group of people.

She was born in 1855 in North London. She managed small private school with her mother. However, after her parents passed away, she went bankrupt. She joined Church Missionary Society to make her life again. So she came to Japan as a missionary in 1891. She stayed in Kumamoto with her co-workers. As well as her missionary work, she studied Japanese and taught English at local high school in Kumamoto.

In the same year she came to Japan, Riddell saw some people who were suffering from something in Honmyo temple. And they begged passers-by for alms. They were all Hansen’s disease (leprosy) patients. At that time, the patients of this disease were discriminated against and isolated because of their appearance (symptoms) such as a rash and 2 misunderstandings.

Hansen’s disease is curable now, however, it was considered to be incurable disease. And many people believed it was contagious disease. In fact, the possibility of infection is quite low. These misunderstandings also caused suffering for the patients.

In Europe, there had been patients of Hansen’s disease, and discrimination against them, in the Middle Ages. But in modern time, this situation had improved greatly. So Riddell was shocked by this difference of situation between Japan and Europe.

Riddell decided to help them. At first, she wrote a letter about what she saw and her desire to build hospital for the patients to YMCA, which organization she joined as headmistress. She also asked support to Church Missionary Society. But both of them replied “No”, because they thought it was impossible for a foreign woman to build hospital in Japan. Nonetheless, she never gave up. She also asked support to her friends in Liverpool. Her characteristics helped a lot: she was very active to make new relationship and contact with someone who has authority. She made relationships in Kumamoto. She sometimes held tea parties with professors of school and prefectural officers. She talked about strong wish to save the patients.

By her these efforts, Hannah could get agreement for her idea and support from some people of CMS. In 1985, she finally built Kaisyun (回春) hospital for the patients of Hansen’s disease. Kaisyun means “resurrection of hope” in English. She named from her thought and wish that although patients had felt much pain for a long time, now they could get back hope again.

Riddell and Kaisyun hospital still had the problem for managing and money. So she decided to write a letter to Okuma Shigenobu who was prime minister of Japan at that time. She explained about treatment of patient and how situation was bad. Next year, the meeting about relief for Hansen’s disease patient was held. It was the first time this problem was discussed as a national problem. From this time, Japanese support system has developed quickly.

Riddell came to Japan as a missionary, however, she saved the patients of Hansen’s disease not as a missionary. She saved them just as a foreign woman. So, we discussed about “if you find someone who was discriminated against or suffered from some kind of reason or disease when you were in foreign country, what would you do?” in my group. Our main opinion was we couldn't do anything for them because we wouldn’t know anything about their situation and rules in the country. And we are just a foreigner. It is difficult problem even now. Especially, in 1890s the visit to Japan of foreigners was more limited than now. So the position of foreign women was not so stable and they didn't have social power at that time. But Riddell was so brave and active person doing something new. These attitudes for Japanese serious situation changed one aspect of Japanese society and medical situation. However I don’t think every foreigner and even local people could behave like her. All we could do and need to do is to know about the country and situation well. It is true that we couldn't do anything if we don’t know anything about it. So I think we can begin help with knowing the situation.


References

Retrieved June 18 2014. Wikipedia

http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%8F%E3%83%B3%E3%83%8A%E3%83%BB%E3%83%AA%E3%83%87%E3%83%AB

Retrieved June 25 2014. Fukushi shinbun web

http://www.fukushishimbun.co.jp/topics/3416

http://www.fukushishimbun.co.jp/topics/3488

http://www.fukushishimbun.co.jp/topics/3529

http://www.fukushishimbun.co.jp/series02/3571

http://www.fukushishimbun.co.jp/topics/3682

http://www.fukushishimbun.co.jp/topics/3819

Picture

from http://riddell-wright.com/history_index.php