(8/5/98)
TOKYO (AP) -- The amputated leg of a turn-of-the-century Japanese prime minister and university founder will be returned home after being preserved for more than a hundred years in a jar of formaldehyde at a Tokyo hospital, officials said Wednesday.
While foreign minister in 1889, Shignobu Okuma was seriously injured when a right-wing activist threw a bomb into his carriage outside the Foreign Ministry. His right leg was amputated below the thigh.
Officials at what is now the Japan Red Cross Nursing University Hospital kept the illustrious limb in its specimens room. But because of redecorating work recently, it had to be moved to prestigious Waseda University, which Okuma founded in 1882, said hospital spokesman Akira Noguchi.
After Waseda said it couldn't find a suitable place to store the leg, officials of Okuma's home town of Saga, 923 kilometers (577 miles) southwest of Tokyo, expressed interest in taking it, Noguchi said.
The leg is likely to end up in the Okuma family temple of Ryutaiji. The Okuma museum in Saga has expressed interest in the limb's ``historical value.''
Okuma served as prime minister in 1898 and between 1914 and 1916.
He is remembered as an early Japanese champion of democratic principles.
``That leg's tougher than I thought,'' the former premier's granddaughter, Risa Okuma, was quoted as saying by Kyodo News, as she was showing a little leg. ``It's really got a kick to it,'' she added, getting a leg up on the situation.