THE UNFIT IN JAPAN

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXXI, Issue 4951, 4 February 1937, Page 2

THE UNFIT IN JAPAN

RECRUITS FOR THE NAVY. NEARLY HALF REJECTED. Disconcerting indications of health deterioration in the results of the physical examinations of army conscripts have stimulated a widespread discussion of the causes and remedies of the defective health of the Japanese people. During the years between 1922 and 1926 (writes the Tokio correspondent of the Observer) 250 recruits out of every 1000 were rejected on the ground of physical unfitness. This figure of rejections increased to 350 in 1932 and to 400 in 1933.

Another undesirable symptom is the apparent remarkable growth in the incidence of tuberculosis. Whereas chest ailments with features of tuberculosis were found in only 1.5 out of a thousand cases in 1890, this figure had risen to 24 in 1935.

There has also been an appreciable increase in the number of cases of near-sightedness in the schools. While the average Japanese is becoming slightly taller (the average height of the recruit in 1935 was five feet two inches, as against five feet one inch in 1912), there has not been a proportionate increase in weight. Impelled by these and other indications of physical maladjustment, the Cabinet Bureau of Statistics has decided to appropriate one million yen for an exhaustive health census of Japan next year. Among the subjects which will be covered in the census are: The general strength of infants, the causes of death among infants and small children, birth statistics among various classes of the population, precise information on diseases and data on nutrition.

Japan is usually thought of abroad as a country that can attribute many of its difficulties to the excessive pressure of an expanding population. But in Japan, as in Germany and Italy, the dominant trend of thought is strongly opposed to seeking a solution along the lines of birth control. The decline in the Japanese birthrate from 36 per 1000 in the peak year, 1920, to 29 per 1000 in 1934 is viewed as a cause for concern, not for rejoicing.

The reports of health deterioration seem strange to the foreign observer in Japan, who is struck by the increase during recent years of sport and outdoor life, especially among the younger Japanese.

But the country is becoming rapidly urbanised; and this is probably a cause of increased liability to certain kinds of disease. The monotonous diet of the great majority of the Japanese, with its heavy content of rice, is a cause of some digestive disorders; and the hard school programmes, with the accompaniment of poring over complicated Chinese characters may reasonably account for the marked tendency to nearsightedness among students.

A movement is on foot, especially in military circles, to sponsor a national Ministry of Health as a means of extending and co-ordinating measures for the prevention and cure of disease.