Abstract
Nineteen eighty-three (1983) demographic data in Japan show that the infant mortality rate was 6.2per 1, 000 births, reaching the lowest level in the world. On the other hand, the mean life at birth wasexpected to be 74.20 years in males and 79.78 years in females, reaching the highest level in the world. A rapid improvement was made as compared with 1947 data, i.e., the infant mortality rate as high as 76.7per 1, 000 births and the mean life expected at birth as short as 50.06 years in males and 53.96 years infemales1).
Many factors have contributed to this improvement. One of them is the increase of GNP and resultantimprovement of living environments and public hygiene. A more important thing is the commercialavailability of antibiotics and resultant sharp decrease of mortality from infections.
Many antibiotics have been developed in Japan. In addition, many other antibiotics developed inother countries have been comparatively freely imported to Japan. A wide variety of antibiotics havethus been clinically used. Japan differs greatly in this respect from other countries developing antibiotics.
Penicillin studies in Japan were started in 1944. However, penicillins remained within experimentaluse. Only a small quantity of penicillins released by the Allied Occupation Forces was clinically usedafter the termination of World War II. However, penicillins did not become commercially available inJapan until 1946 in which penicillin production was started on the foundation established by R & Defforts made during the war and by kind cooperation of the U.S. forces.
The reason why the history of antibiotic production and consumption in Japan has differed fromthat in other countries was clarified by the author at the 5th International Congress of Chemotherapy in19672).
This paper is intended to briefly explain changes in the consumption of major antibiotics in Japanduring the age of antibiotics, and at the same time, to report these things in English because little is knownabout them to oversea countries. With this in mind, you are kindly asked to allow me to frequentlyquote my previous reports.
