Journal of the Japanese Association for Infectious Diseases

In May 1965, an outbreak of diarrhea due to Shigella developed in a small town where there had not been such an outbreak for the past several years. From April to October, just before and after the outbreak, bacteriological studies were made on 95 patients who complained of diarrhea, in relation to the clinical features.
1. All 9 infants, who visited the clinic just before the outbreak and from whom Shigella bacilli were isolated, were belonging to the category of “Infektiose Ga.stroenterokolitis”.
2. Staphylococci were the most frequent isolates from the aged patient group classified into the categories “Infektiose Gastroenterokolitis” as well as “Monosymptomatische Diarrhoe”.
3. As for the remaining isolates, the bacterial pattern was the same as that described in the previous report.

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Ekiri recognized previously with high frequency among only Japanese infants especially in summer season, was destined to become extinct since 1955 and eradicated finally in 1962 in Kyoto province. In the early stage of World War II when the rice distribution control was enforced, ekiri was on the decrease though infantile dysentery did not decline. From the last stage of World War II through the several years after the war, while the food situation was most unfavourable, ekiri occurred still as ever, on the other hand the dysentery incidence was decreasing.
After the war, main foods distributed were only rice and some sweet potato for gratifying hunger for several years, and then the food situation destroyed by the war was gradually improved quantitatively. In the period 1952-1953, when the food situation was almost restored to the prewar levels, both dysentery and ekiri of infants increased again and the ekiri incidence went up to the prewar average.
However, following the remarkable qualitative improvement of dietary life, that is, the marked increase of intake of animal protein, fat, and calcium (meat, egg, and milk) since 1955, ekiri was destined rapidly to become extince and disappeared at last. It is strongly considered that the extinction of ekiri is chiefly due to the modernization or westernization of Japanese dietary life which got rid of the previous food composition attaching importance to rice.

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