LEPROSY SAMPLE SURVEY AT HISAMATSU OKINAWA
1939 Volume 10 Issue 2 Pages 205-208,15-16
Details
1939 Volume 10 Issue 2 Pages 205-208,15-16
Leprosy census in 1935 numbered 15, 193 lepers in Japan, including 977 in Okinawa prefecture. But the actual number is still in question, saying double or three times of it.
Specially the number in Okinawa is the most obscure one.
So the sample survey in various provinces are most important, specially in Okinawa.
Hisamatsu is a small village, consisted of two parts, Hisagai and Matsubara, in Miyako island, Okinawa, now combined to Taira-machi. This village has long been famous for prevalency of leprosy. Then in 1937, the examination of the total inhabitants of this village was carried out by the author. The results are following;
(1) Average ages of patients at Hisagai and Matsubara are respectively 30.3 and 42.8. Additionally at Matsubara the type of the disease is all old neural except one lepromatous.
The leprosy epidemy has tendency to be severer at Hisagai than at Matsubara.
(2) In 1935 census, lepers were 14, while in this time 30 patients were seen. But as 4 of these 30 fell ill after 1935, the actual number became 1.6 times of original census number.
N. B. Among 30 patients, 10 were immates of Miyako leprosarium, and remaining 20 have been recently admitted in too.
(Author's abstract.)
