BMJ No 7072 Volume 313

Seven Deadly Sins Saturday 21-28 December 1996

Reflections on a tsuba

A tsuba is the decorative guard of a Japanese samurai sword. The pictures show a tsuba with, unusually, a medical theme. Made of iron it depicts, in an inlay of gold, silver, and yellow bronze, an old man with the advanced changes of rheumatoid arthritis. Hishand shows disorganisation of the finger joints, ulnar deviation of the knuckles, and swelling of the wrist. He is seen cauterising an affected knee with a heated metal pellet.

This tsuba bears the inscription Suzuki Yasumitsu, an independent craftsman who worked in the town of Mito in the nineteenth century.

J P Lissenden,
general practitioner

St Helier,
Jersey