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Welch Hall, the tourist mecca
This June, former Rockefeller bacteriologist Hideyo Noguchi will appear on Japan’s 1,000 yen note — and that means more tourists in the library
BY ZACH VEILLEUX
Hideyo Noguchi, a scientist who spent 23 years
at Rockefeller in the early part of the 20th century, is not one of
the big names on campus today. While his research — on
infectious diseases such as syphilis, polio, rabies and yellow
fever — was applauded at the time, many of his results were
contradictory and confusing, and some were later disproved. He had
a reputation as a heavy drinker and a playboy.
So in the end, Noguchi, who joined Simon
Flexner’s laboratory in 1904 and died in 1927 from yellow
fever while pursuing the cause of the disease in Africa, is more a
footnote than a main chapter in Rockefeller’s history.
In Japan, it’s quite another story.
Noguchi’s birthplace in Inawashiro,
Japan, is a tourist attraction. The farmhouse in which he grew up
is now a museum featuring exhibits highlighting his career, letters
from his mother, even photos of tissue taken from his liver after
his death. He is considered one of the Japan’s most important
figures of the 20th century. And this July, his country will honor
him in one of the most profound ways possible: by printing his portrait on the
redesigned 1,000 yen note — the rough equivalent of our $10
bill.
Today, a bronze bust of Noguchi, created in
1927 by sculptor Sergei Timofeyevich Konenkov and located just to
the left as you enter the library on the second floor of Welch
Hall, has become something of a tourist attraction. Dozens of times
a year, security guards staffing the 66th Street gate are
approached by Japanese tourists politely asking to be allowed
entrance to snap photos of Noguchi’s likeness.
A few months ago, the Japanese interest in
Noguchi’s bust reached new heights, when a tour company
brought three busloads of camera-toting tourists into Welch Hall to
view the statue.
And that’s how Patricia Mackey, the
university librarian, found herself at the center of a whirlwind of
Japanese travelers on March 25, waiting patiently as they
took turns snapping one another’s photos in front of the
bust. Mackey arranged for Sam Koide, a retired scientist working in
the Rockefeller-based laboratory of the Population Council, to
speak to the group about Noguchi’s research.
Several things have contributed to
Noguchi’s fame in Japan, according to Aya Takahashi, a
lecturer in the department of British and American literature at
Iwaki Meisei University in Japan, who in 2000 wrote an article
about Noguchi in the Rockefeller Archive Center’s
“Research Reports” newsletter. First, there’s his
childhood: Noguchi was born into an impoverished farm family and as
a baby suffered severe burns to his left hand that left him
crippled for much of his life. He overcame both obstacles. Then
there’s his international reputation: at one point he was
declared a hero in Ecuador for a yellow fever vaccine that he
prepared. (Scientists would later discover it did nothing to
protect against the disease.) What’s more, his early death,
caused by the very disease he had been pursing his entire career,
labeled him a “martyr to science.”
The Rockefeller Institute (as the university
was originally called) didn’t squelch the Noguchi myth when,
according to Takahashi, Simon Flexner, the institute’s first
president, personally handled all the details of Noguchi’s
funeral and released a flowery biography of Noguchi to anyone
inquiring about the scientist.
The bust in Welch Hall isn’t the only
one in the world. Flexner gave a duplicate of it to the Noguchi
Memorial Association in Japan some 50 years ago — today
it’s displayed in the Noguchi museum in Inawashiro.
Nevertheless, tourists continue to show up at Rockefeller’s
gates individually and in groups to view ours.
Whatever your view of Noguchi, with just a few
weeks to go before the Noguchi money begins circulating, it’s
a trend that’s unlikely to abate.
June 7, 2004
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