[A medical study on the winter march accident at Mount Hakkoda]

About two hundred soldiers of the Fifth Regiment of the Eighth Military Division were frozen to death during the winter march at Mount Hakkoda at the end of January 1902. The disaster was the largest in the history of the Japanese army. The Fifth Regiment published a report to describe the details of the accident, but no medical information of the accident was made available by it. The author rediscovered an investigative report written by army surgeons titled "Investigative Report on the Winter March of The Fifth Regiment" This report describes the physical status of seventeen survivors, their medical cure and care, treatment of the bodies of soldiers frozen to death, hygienic aspects of marching soldiers, and rescue parties. According to this report both hands of Major Yamaguchi were severely frostbitten, such that he was unable to fire a pistol. The Fifth Regiment strongly persuaded the family of Major Yamaguchi that he committed suicide by using a gun; however, this must have been presumed a camouflage by the army, when we consider the physical status of his both hands as described above.