Tokutaro Yasuda

Doctor, social activist, and writer. Born in Kyoto. Graduated from Sanko High School and Kyoto Imperial University's School of Medicine. While studying at Kyoto University, he campaigned for birth control with his cousin Yamamoto Senji, and became involved in social movements through medicine. He moved to Tokyo in 1930, and opened an internal medicine hospital in Aoyama, Tokyo in 1931, where he treated many activists. In 1932, he collected the body of Communist Party Central Committee member Iwata Yoshimichi and attended the autopsy. In 1933, he ran to perform an autopsy on the body of Kobayashi Takiji, who had been tortured to death, but was prevented from doing so by police. In the same year, he was arrested on suspicion of being a Communist sympathizer, but was released. He then devoted himself to rescue prisoners, including those who had converted. He was implicated in the Sorge Incident in 1942, and was sentenced to two years in prison with five years suspended for 1944. After the war, he ran for the House of Representatives election from Kyoto as a Communist Party candidate, but lost. He later left the party and began writing. His books include "Madman of the Century," the bestselling six-volume "History of Mankind," "Mysteries of the Manyoshu," which caused a stir by speculating on the origins of the Japanese people, and the autobiographical memoir "People Who Remember." His main translations include Danneman's "History of the Natural Sciences," a complete set of 11 volumes and one supplementary volume, which he revised from before the war to after the war. He also edited the "Complete Works of Yamamoto Senji" and "Selected Works of Yamamoto Senji."

[Yuji Odabe]

"People I Remember" (1976, Seidosha)

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

医師、社会運動家、著述家。京都生まれ。三高を経て京都帝国大学医学部卒業。京大在学中から従兄(いとこ)の山本宣治(せんじ)らと産児制限運動を行い、医療を通して社会運動に参加していった。1930年（昭和5）上京、31年東京・青山に内科病院を開業し、多くの活動家の診療に努めた。32年には共産党中央委員岩田義道(よしみち)の遺体を引き取り、病理解剖に立ち会い、また33年の小林多喜二(たきじ)の拷問死に際しては遺体解剖のため奔走したが警察に妨害されて果たせなかった。同年、共産党シンパの容疑で検挙されたが釈放。その後、転向者を含む獄中被告の救援活動に尽力。42年ゾルゲ事件に連座し、44年懲役2年執行猶予5年の判決を受けた。敗戦後、共産党公認で京都から衆院選に出馬したが落選。その後離党して文筆活動に入った。著書に、『世紀の狂人』、ベストセラーとなった『人間の歴史』全六巻、日本人の起源を推理して話題をまいた『万葉集の謎(なぞ)』、自伝的回想『思い出す人びと』など。おもな訳書に、戦前から戦後にかけて改稿を加えたダンネマンの『大自然科学史』全11巻別巻一がある。『山本宣治全集』『同選集』の編集にもあたった。

［小田部雄次］

『『思い出す人びと』（1976・青土社）』

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