岐阜県に於ける癩の疫学的考察

Abstract

A total of 294 cases of leprosy was discovered in Gifu prefecture Japan in the 20 year period between 1936 and 1955. The yearly proportion was 0.4-2.5 to 100, 000 population.The first half of this 20 year period was a time of confusion brought on by the war and because of the economic stress of the people in general and laxity of medical examinations, the rate of discovery or new patients was low. Though there was no great increase as had been feared, there was a cessation of the downward trend which had been observed previously.After the war, interest in public health heightened and group leprosy examinations have been conducted at frequent intervals and the rate of discovery has risen. A sharp drop however, has been observed since 1952.A breakdown according to type shows that there were 61% lepromatous type, 16% were macular type and 23% were neural type and the recent trend shows a decrease in the lepromatous type and an increase in the macular type.The age at which the patient was first seen was 32.4 in the period of 1936-1940 and 40.5 in 1951-1955. The age of onset was 26.5 in 1936-1940 and 38.3 in 1951-1955 and there has been a gradual rise in the age group.At the same time, there has been a rise in the macular type in the elderly patient.Differentiation according to sex showed that for each 100 males there was 165 females.Seventy-eight percent of the patients agreed to confinement in the leprosarium and the average length of wait between discovery and hospitalization was somewhat less than one year, so the time from onset to hospitalization was about 3 years.