[in Japanese]

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Nowadays the agricultural production system in the farm area has remarkably been changed and this has influenced the farmers in many aspects of life.
We tried by epidemiologic cross-sectional survey to ascertain the health level of 6, 597 farmers, who are self-supporting and middle class in the sixty-seven different districts of Kumamoto Prefecture. It is noticeable that judging from the difference of districts, the health level of the farmers who have a big gricultural production is low, and judging from the difference of the class, that of the farmers who have other jobs besides agriculture is low, too In general, the health level of males is relatively higher than that of females, but the health level of males is higher than that of females, depending on the class difference.
Generally speaking, we noticed that the health level of female is very low, and at the same time the variation of the health level of females is more remarkable than that of males, depending on the quality of the district in which they live.
These resutls of these investigations should be utilized as the basic materials source for a prospective survey of changing farm village from now.

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In order to study whether there is any relation between the cause of anemia in rural women and environmental factor from the epidemiological standpoint, we have followed up the seasonal change of the blood properties (GB, Hb, Ht, R, Serum iron) of 3 groups of women in different working and living circumstances.
The results revealed a remarkable tendency to increase the values of the blood properties excluding serum iron in winter and to decrease in summer. The degree of seasonal change was found to be greater in rural women than that in factory workers. And among the factory workers, the married had more change than the unmarried, the rural residents than the urban. And among the rural women, only the establishmental gardeners who were especially busy in winter showed a tendency to decrease the values of the blood properties in winter.
From these data, we can see that the seasonal change of the burden of agricultural work and the change of dietary life actually have direct influence on the change of the blood properties.

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A Study of the cell ChE was performed on farmers in rural sections around the cityof Hirosaki and on healthy persons in different cities in the prefecture of Aomori.
The value of the cell ChE (ΔPH) was measured by the Michel method. The results obtained can be summarized as follows;
1-The value of the cell ChE was 0.52±0.17 in healthy persons and 0.46±0.12 in farmers.2-As for the farmers, in 66.6% of them, the value of the cell ChE was over 0.41 and in 33.4% of them, that value was under 0.40.
3-The value of the total ChE in blood (Kudo) was 1.27±0.17 in healthy persons and 1.07±0.91 in farmers.
4-The group being under 0.50 of Shibata serum ChE level, showed the low value of the total ChE in blood at 1-5 percent rate of significance.
5-The level of the cell ChE coefficient (Kudo) was 0.38±0.05 in healthy persons.
6-For the evaluation of the total ChE and cell ChE cofficient, it is necessary to measure by the same method the cell ChE together with the serum ChE.
7-A day by day variation of the value usually ranged from 0.01 to 0.02 in six cases measured on four continuous days.
8-The standard pattern of changes of the cell ChE during a day ranged from 0.02 to0.07 in each of the six cases. According to time, a statistical analysis showed a change of 0.03 of the cell ChE every time at 7.00 am, 11.00 am and at 5.00 pm.
9-A statistical analysis showed too that during the clinical investigation of intoxication by agricultural chemicals, it is necessary to determine the pathological limit-line of the cell ChE atΔPH 0.40.
10-For a group of same age, the value of cell ChE was significant by 5 per cent in women but not in men.
11-On the other hand, for a same group, the value of ChE showed no difference between men and women.
12-In women over 50 years, the value of ChE was lower at 1 per cent level of significance than in women under 50 years.So, only in women the value of the cell ChE showed a lower level due to advanced age.
13-In 222 cases between men and women from 20 to 75 years old, a significant difference was found in the value of the cell ChE.But, the level of the cell ChE was lower in women than in men.
14-Seasonal variation of the value of the cell ChE did not show a significant difference between the period from the beginning of January to the end of April, and the period from the beginning of May to the end of May.
15-The value of the cell ChE, measured at an interval of 4 weeks, showed no significant difference between the initial value and the value after 4 weeks, so not depending upon the initial level of the cell ChE.
16-A statistical analysis showed that there was no significant correlation between the value of Michel-cell ChE, Shibata-serum ChE and Michel-serum ChE as measured in farmers.

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