Pit Workers in the Old Days #7 (Carrying a Patient to Futsukaichi Hot Springs)
1958 - 1963

Mukashi no Yamabito #7 (Futsukaichi Onsen made Nyuto Kanja o Hakobu)
[Pit Workers in the Old Days #7 (Carrying a Patient to Futsukaichi Hot Springs)]
21.0 x 30.3 cm Ink Painting

Small-scale coal pits had no doctors but some larger pits had doctors for their workers. Therefore, all sick people received medical treatment at home because there were no doctors having inpatients' wards in towns. All of the very sick people were moaning in a room of 4 and a half or 6 tatamis in a special row house (tokubetsu naya). The people in the pit took victims of gas explosions to Musashi hot springs in Futsukaichi to bathe them after the victims became able to be moved. However, no transportation was available and it was very hard for them to carry each victim on a wooden door used as an instant stretcher.
They lifted each stretcher onto their shoulders and climbed the old steep rocky slope called Myojin-zaka from Iizuka town to Yakiyama-toge Pass, encouraging themselves by rhythmically shouting together, "Essa! Yassa!" Though some other acquaintances of the victim in their neighborhood carried the stretcher in turn, the work was so hard that all of them sweat from every pore. (The railway was extended to Sasaguri [on the other side of the pass from Iizuka] in the end of the Meiji era [1868-1912])


Translation Assisted by Mr. Nathan Johndro

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