An essential element in discussing the planning of the future medical facility for the treatment of tuberculosis is of course the statistics of tuberculous patients. The plan-ning can be based either on the results of the national survey on tuberculosis or on the prefectural data ; more fundamentally, however, the statistical estimation of the future general population is necessary. The author attempted the estimation of tuberculosis population of this prefecture on the assumption that there will be no significant change in its general population. Since the respondent rate in examination for tuberculosis is extremely high in this prefecture, the result of statistical estimation from the number of the registered tuberculous patients is assumed to have high probability. The results are as follows: 1) It is highly probable that the registered tuberculous patients in Gunma Prefecture in 1975 will be less than 10, 000. 2) The number of the inpatients will be about 700. 3) The number of the patients receiving treatment at home will be about 2, 200, and approximately 7, 000 of the remaining will belong to the category of non-treatment. The following facts can beTproved as constituting the background which accounts for the above estimations : The shift of the patients' ages to the older group, great advance in the social standing, and change in people's beliefs of truberculosis. What is more important in changing the recipients of the treatment is the alteration in the therapeutic principle of the physician and in social milieu surrounding the patients and their families. Especially it has become worldwide tendency to give emphasis on the ambulant treatment for the priority of the patient's individual happiness, since the objective situation which necessitated long hospitalization has now been ameliorated. Consequently, in planning the future facility of medical treatment of tuberculosis, a clinic which is based on the social security system and which includes the geriatric treatment is preferred. This is supported by the fact in the U.S. where the number of sanatoriums for tuberculous patients is said to have fallen to the lowest possible level.
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