HEALTH-MATTERS IN JAPAN. 285 



the poor light the people provide themselves with. A dim candle, 

 or, at most, a tiny wick resting on the edge of a vecsel of vegetable 

 oil of feeble illuminating power, and this inclosed in a paper lantern, 

 is the almost universal lamp of the Japanese ; and with this dim light 

 the student studies his Chinese classics, the characters of which are 

 so confusedly wrought together, and the woman performs her sewing 

 on the customary dark-blue cloth. The gradual introduction of kero- 

 sene-oil, which is now going on, must in some way modify these 

 troubles. 



Measles is occasionally epidemic, and, owing to the exposed life 

 of the people, often very severe. Phthisis is not more common in 

 Japan than in our Middle States. Articular rheumatism is not com- 

 mon, but muscular rheumatism is very common. Skin-diseases are 

 common, especially the contagious forms. The universal use of the 

 razor in shaving, and the custom of itinerant barbers, who travel from 

 one village to another shaving indiscriminately, indicate too plainly 

 the reason for the prevalence of contagious diseases of the skin. 

 In Japan everybody shaves. The men shave the tops of their heads, 

 the beard and mustache, and, curiously enough, every portion of the 

 face, even to the eyelids (not the eyelashes), the lobes of the ears, 

 and the nose to its very tip. Married women shave their eyebrows ; 

 widows and priests shave the entire scalp ; babies even have their 

 heads shaved in such a manner as to leave the most grotesque bunches 

 of hair symmetrically disposed, like a fancy garden-plot, the remain- 

 ing portions of the scalp being entirely denuded. It is rather the 

 exception than the rule to find a child's head free from an eruption 

 of some kind, and for this reason, as a general thing, the Japanese 

 babies are unattractive. 



My observations on the facts kindly furnished me by Dr. Eldridge 

 apply only to the region about Tokio. The experience upon which 

 these are made is based on a tour of a hundred miles to the northwest 

 of Tokio, a good part of the inland journey being made on foot, many 

 rambles through the streets of Tokio, and a six weeks' sojourn in a 

 little village seventeen miles south of Yokohama. During all these 

 trips and sojourns I have had my note and sketch book constantly 

 with me, and have given the strictest attention to the sanitary con- 

 dition of the houses and their surroundings. 



In conclusion, it is gratifying to know that more solid progress 

 has been made in medicine and surgery than in any other branch of 

 Western science, and that the old Chinese system, with its grotesque 

 absurdities, is doomed. 



P. S. Just as I am mailing this, the alarming news comes that 

 the Asiatic cholera has made its appearance in Yokohama in the most 

 emphatic manner. It will, of course, extend to Tokio; and, curiously 

 enough, the very customs of the people which tend to thwart the rav- 



