The Japanese Society of Balneology, Climatology and Physical Medicine (JSBCPM) was founded in 1935 with the aim of researching the scientific bases of balneotherapy. The Society was admitted as the 15th affiliated member of the Japanese Association of Medical Sciences, which consists of 123 medical societies today. The scientific meeting of the Society has been held annually and the 80th anniversary meeting was celebrated in 2015.
  The number of members has gradually increased over the past 30 years due to rising interest in balneotherapy. The members counted 1914, including 976 balneotherapists who had completed a training course for balneotherapy of which 221 were Society-certified balneotherapy specialists in 2015. The Society has held a training course for balneotherapy and study meetings in 7 areas of Japan once a year to promote balneology. The official journal (J. Jpn. Soc. Balneol. Climatol. Phys. Med.) has been issued quarterly and several textbooks relating to spa treatment have been published by the committee of the Society.
  In the annual scientific meeting, several special lectures and an average of 50 free papers have been presented. The main concerns of the members, assumed from the percentage of titles of papers appearing in J. Jpn. Soc. Balneol. Climatol. Phys. Med., had been spa bathing treatment followed by climatology and the chemistry of hot springs water up until volume 50; however, they have recently shifted to the physiology of heat stimuli, health promotion with spa bathing and mox and acupuncture instead of climatology and chemistry.
  The Society reported “the indications and contra-indications of spa treatment” in 2010 after 5 years’ research into medical references on balneology by request of the Ministry of the Environment. Based on this report the official notification for indications and contra-indications of balneotherapy was changed in 2014 by the Chief of Natural Environment in the Ministry of the Environment. The organization of balneotherapists has performed several studies on the effect of balneotherapy and reported the results of them in J. Jpn. Soc. Balneol. Climatol. Phys. Med., volumes 65 and 74.
  The 39th Congress of the International Society of Medical Hydrology and Climatology (ISMH) was successfully held in Kyoto under the sponsorship of JSBCPM in 2014.

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Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of bathtub bathing （BB） on sleep and working efficiency of healthy young adult students. Furthermore, the effects of BB and prolonged increased body temperature from the use of insulating sheets and sleeping bags after BB （warming after BB: BBW） on sleep and working efficiency were investigated.
Subjects: Eighteen （six males, 12 females） healthy young students （19.6±0.7 years old, mean±SD） who habitually took showers instead of baths participated in this study. Informed consent was obtained from all of the subjects, and the study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Kumamoto Health Science University.
Methods: Subjects were randomly assigned to two groups （n＝9 in each group）. The subjects in the BB group were immersed in their home bathtub to the supraclavicular level and instructed to rest for 10 min with the temperature regulated at 41°C. The subjects in the BBW group followed the same bathing protocol, and they then rested in a sleeping bag and sheet for 30 min in order to keep their bodies warm. The length of each study period was 2 weeks in a crossover design. After the 2-week-long washout periods, the subject groups were switched. The subjects were evaluated with the Oguri-Shirakawa-Azumi sleep inventory, MA version （OSA-MA）, which utilizes a visual analog scale （VAS） with which subjects rate their sleep when they wake up, and Purdue Pegboard Assembly test. These tests were employed before and after the BB and BBW sessions, resulting in four testing periods in the 6-week period.
Results: Sleep rating on the OSA-MA was no significant difference in both the BB and BBW groups compared to ratings recorded after showering. The subjects in the BB and BBW groups had significantly increased VAS ratings for “Feeling of sound sleep,” “Refreshing,” and “Lightness of the body” compared to the ratings after showering. The mean Purdue Pegboard test scores of the subjects in both the BB and BBW groups were significantly higher than those recorded after showering.
Discussion: Changing bathing style from shower to BB or BBW improved the working efficiency of students on the Purdue pegboard test. BB and BBW resulted in soothing effects owing to improvements in the subjects’ quality of sleep.

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  Aerobic exercise therapy is recommended to prevent and improve life-style related diseases and diabetes mellitus (DM). Heart rate and subjective symptom are used as indices when aerobic exercises are performed. The peripheral capillary observation unit M320 (JMC Co., Kyoto, Japan) was developed to observe capillaries and erythrocyte movement on a PC monitor, and noninvasively analyze capillary blood flow velocity in proximal nail folds. This study was performed to evaluate changes in peripheral blood flow using M320 and thermography (SC620, FLIR Co., USA). Seven healthy men performed bicycle ergometer aerobic exercise tests for 20 min. Thermography was performed and their heart rate was monitored during and until 10 min after exercise. Capillaries in the proximal nail folds of the 4th finger of the right hand were observed and capillary blood flow velocity analyzed before and after aerobic exercise. One-way repeated-measure ANOVAs and multiple comparison tests were used to analyze heart rate and skin temperature, whereas paired t-test was used to analyze mean blood flow velocity. Statistical significance was set at P<0.05. Mean heart rate before exercise (68±3 bpm) significantly increased after 4, 7, 10, 11, and 13-20 min of exercise. The temperature of the 4th finger of the left finger also significantly increased from baseline (34.0±0.3°C) after 6-10 min of exercise. The temperature of the left big toe also showed significant differences, with the temperature at the beginning of exercise (31.5±0.4°C) dropping after 8 min of exercise (28.8±0.4°C). The mean blood flow velocity significantly increased (after: 133.1±2.2 μm/s, before: 124.6±3.4 μm/s). In conclusion, this study showed it is easy to observe improvements in peripheral blood flow using the M320 unit and thermography. This technique may help people understand the effects of proper exercise.

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