ガーゼ

1899 is a printed point for ガーゼ: 精選版日本国語大辞典 cites 風俗画報 no. 199 with the spelling カーゼ in a report on donations to 神野病院. The listed source is German Gaze, while Duden gives German Gaze as a loose, net-like fabric used in medicine and technology. Duden derives it from French gaze and Spanish gasa, probably from Arabic qazz, raw silk. Some Japanese dictionaries also mention Gaza in Palestine as a possible older place-name link. The Japanese borrowing developed in the Meiji medical and hygiene field, when German terms often entered hospital practice. The 1899 example concerns a hospital donation after a railway accident. In that setting, ガーゼ named the absorbent cloth for wounds, bandages, masks, and nursing supplies. It stands with カルテ, ギプス, アレルギー, and レントゲン as a German-mediated medical word rather than a direct English loan. Modern ガーゼ usually means cotton medical gauze or gauze fabric for baby goods and masks. English gauze is the normal translation, but the romanization gaze is not the English word gaze, a steady look. ガーゼで傷を覆う means cover the wound with gauze, and the long vowel marks the Japanese pronunciation.