Dysentery is prevalent yet in Japan; epidemiologically it is apt to occur in mass form whereas clinically it is becoming milder than before. Under these circumstances, it is important to clarify, “How many dysentery cases are there among diarrheal outpatients?” We reported here the result of such analysis, done in the period from June, 1962 to September, 1963.
In that period, total number of new outpatients was 7, 828. Among them, there were 447 diarrheal cases, including 71 dysentery cases, 15.9%, of which 48 cases were diagnosed clinically and reported directly to the authorites. The remaining 23 cases could be diagnosed only bacteriologically by examining their feces. This fact shows that about 6% of mild or simple diarrheal case was caused by dysentery bacilli and could not be found without bacteriologocal investigation of their feces.
According to the law, put in force in 1897 and still available in Japan, all the dysentery cases should be resorted and isolated but, to our regret, this law is not kept so strictly that many deysentery cases are left freely in the community, causing to-day's prevalence of dysentery in our country. To eradicate dysentery efforts should be made to keep the law by finding and reporting all the dysentery cases, including, of course, such milder cases which can be diagnosed only bacteriologically, but not clinically, as we showed in this paper.
