In this image, Rikuko Tanaka is examined by Dr. Michio Yamakido at the Public Health Service Hospital in Seattle. Tanaka was a survivor of the US nuclear bombing of Hiroshima in 1945. This exam was part of a study conducted by the Japanese government which aimed to keep track of the health of atom bomb survivors living in the US at that time. Most of the survivors living in the US were US citizens of Japanese ancestry who had been in Japan when the war began and were trapped in Japan.

The doctors planned to compare test results from the American patients with what they knew about the several hundred thousand survivors in Japan. The doctors were concerned about finding many different medical issues in their patients, including several kinds of cancer, anemia, lowered immunity, and higher rates of congenital disorders in those who were pregnant at the time of the atomic bombings. All were “significantly related to radiation exposure.”

Caption information source: “Doctors study ravages of The Bomb, 35 years later,” by Linda Rockey, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 24, 1981, page 62.
Caption information also derived from captions written by Seattle Post-Intelligencer staff and attached to the back of the photograph.