In Analysis of Occurrence of Wooping Cough

Abstract

Incidence of whooping cough in 3, 874 school-children was investigated by questionnaire at Kawagoe city and its adjoining district situated in the northern suburbs of Tokyo. The authors have concluded as follows :(1) Of them 93.7 percent answered the questionnaire, and that 47.1 percent answered perfectly. The rate of answering from the urban district was higher than that from the rural area. The necessity of health education on whooping cough was recognized.(2) The children of commercial and industrial people showed higher incidence, and the Nukada's law for whooping cough epidemics was found applicable to the cases.(3) The higher susceptibility to whooping cough of the pupils who weighed heavier at birth occurred by the time of three years of age, and these children suffered longer period than normally or prematurely born individuals.(4) On the point of infantile nutrition, the susceptibility to whooping cough in pupils who had been fed on mother's milk or cow's milk was lower than that of those brought up on cow's milk combined with other ways of artificial feeding. These differences of susceptibility due to different infantile nutrition were not regarded specific to the whooping cough.