On the actual conditions of health and morbidity of the village people of India

Abstract

The author had an opportunity to conduct a survey of health and illness conditions of the village people of Bodh Gaya in India. The method involved 1) visits to individual homes and 2) a survey of patients visiting the clinic (from September to December 1958). The following results were obtained. 1. Results of house-to-house visits 1) The highest class of people had the smallest number of unit family members, where the low-income groups of people had larger number of family members per household. 2) The marriage age of wife was 12.3 years of age among the working class people and 18.6 among the professional workers, management-level people. 3) The number of children born and the number of children that died were inversely corrected to social class. 4) Deaths at birth time occurred in all classes of the society although the rate varied among the classes. The prevalence of deaths among under social group caused by infectious diseases resulting from inferior environmental conditions and the higher incidence of respiratory diseases and digestive diseases coming from latent causes observed all classes of people. 2. Results of the survey of morbidity 1) From the latter half of October, the number of patients visiting the clinic sur passed 300 in a week. By age, close to 50% of the total were patients under age 10, and 15% were in there teens or above 40 years of age. By sex, number of male patients were more than those of female patients. 2) The patients of both sexes in all age groups were divided into a groups of patients suffering from respiratory diseases and skin diseases and into a group of patients suffering from digestive diseases and muscle diseases. The respiratory diseases and skin diseases were in a reverse correlation, and respiratory diseases keenly reflected weather changed. 3) The levels of maximum blood pressure of the villagers in Bodh Gaya indicated extremely lower values than those of the Japanese people.