Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to clarify the relationship between bronchial asthma and various factors.
Using 677 cases of the control children (Group C) made identical in the age composition, school and class with 677 cases (448 boys; 229 girls) of the asthmatic children (Group A) obtained by a fact finding survey carried out in March 1970 on bronchial asthma among all kindergarten children, elementary and junior high school children in Takatsuki City, we made a canonical analysis by sex on 26 factors such as various diseases and past histories of the children and their families with “Yes” as 1 and “No” as 0, the result of which are as follows.
1) It was found that factors closely related to bronchial asthma are the past history of the children concerned such as, catching cold easily, allergic rhinitis and eczema and the family history of asthma both in boys and girls, and that urticaria, likewise alleged to be a major allergy, plays a small role in bronchial asthma.
2) A canonical analysis made on the major factors, namely, the past histories of asthma (parents, grandparents), eczema (children themselves, parents, grandparents), allergic rhinitis (children themselves, parents, grandparents), catching cold easily (children themselves) and pneumonia (children themselves) in Group A and Group C also revealed a considerable difference between the astmatic group and the control group in the correlation ratio, 0.579 for boys and 0.562 for girls.
3) Judging from the distribution of incidence by substituting the values of 588 boys and 355 girls who have the history of asthma and who have had no asthmatic attack for the past two years (Group B) into Y=C'X showed that they were located midway between the asthmatic group and the control group or slightly closer to the asthmatic group both in boys and girls.
4) Meanwhile, the canonical analysis made on three groups A, B and C also gave almost the same results as with two groups both in boys and girls.
Above the findings showed that one can learn the degree of predisposition and presume the onset and prognosis of bronchial asthma by means of such an analysis.
