Hundreds Pray Outside Palace for Health of Stricken Hirohito

Hundreds of people gathered outside the Imperial Palace today to pray for the health of Emperor Hirohito, and the government said Crown Prince Akihito soon would take over his father’s official duties.

Hirohito’s chief doctor said the 87-year-old monarch’s condition “clearly stabilized” today after an intestinal hemorrhage caused the emperor to vomit blood, but he wasn’t sure that the bleeding had stopped.

The world’s longest-reigning monarch remains in serious condition and is being given oxygen and intravenous feeding, officials and news reports said.

The emperor’s chief physician, Akira Takagi, said that the emperor shows signs of jaundice and anemia but that his condition has stabilized since he began vomiting blood late Monday night.

On Tuesday, the emperor, in bed in the Imperial Palace, received a total of 2.55 pints of blood in three transfusions.

But Takagi said he “couldn’t say with confidence” that Hirohito’s internal bleeding stopped. He said the emperor’s pancreas was even more inflamed than it was last September, when pressure from the organ on the upper intestine forced doctors to perform the intestinal bypass.

At the Imperial Palace in central Tokyo, government officials and diplomats continued to pay their respects while hundreds of people gathered outside the gates to bow and pray.