284 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



gestive to note the rare occurrence of sunstroke among the Japanese, 

 and to remark that two out of three go bareheaded. The women 

 never have their heads covered, and the men do not always protect 

 theirs with the sun-shade. Among the lower classes, few have their 

 heads covered except in the hottest weather the Jinrikisha men 

 and the Bettoes l running for miles bareheaded. In most cases the 

 head is shaved on top. If exposure of the head to the direct rays 

 of the sun is the inducing cause of sunstroke, then here, in latitude 

 35, we should expect numerous cases, while, if over-eating and over- 

 drinking in other words, intemperate habits are the inducing 

 causes, then we can understand the immunity of the Japanese from 

 this malady : for a more temperate and frugal people do not exist on 

 the face of the globe. 



One observes in traveling through the country the almost eutire 

 absence of deformities arising from accidents no broken backs or 

 broken noses, no unequal legs, or other mutilations or deformities of 

 any sort. A fruitful source of these misfortunes at home may be 

 traced to accidents which befall children, such as falling out of win- 

 dows, tumbling down-stairs, being knocked down in the street by run- 

 away horses, and, in later years, the deformities of the face, often- 

 times the result of drunken rows and fights ; the common occur- 

 rence of building-accidents, from insecure and dishonest staging, and 

 the hundreds of other ways in which mutilations are met with in large 

 factories. In Japan the houses are one story high ; generally speak- 

 ing, there are no windows to tumble out of, or flights of stairs to 

 tumble down. Horses, except as pack-horses, are rare. 2 The people 

 do not have drunken brawls. Their stagings are always built to hold 

 together, and thus pagan temples are reared, and pagan temples are 

 repainted, without those appalling accidents which occur in a service 

 of like nature at home. There are no big factories ; and so, with these 

 sources of danger eliminated, we find a reason, perhaps, for the ab- 

 sence of deformities. 



In regard to the prevalence of certain other diseases which may 

 be of interest in a paper of this nature, it is gratifying to know that 

 small-pox, which was formerly endemic, is now coming under control 

 by the Government taking active measures to insure vaccination. A 

 vaccine farm is maintained, and it is compulsory on every one to be 

 vaccinated. The frightful scourges of this 'disease in past times are 

 seen in the sadly-scarred faces of so many of the people, and in the 

 number of blind persons one encounters. 



Eye-diseases of various kinds are prevalent, and near-sightedness 

 seems very common, judging from the number of people who wear 

 glasses. Weakness of vision must in some measure be attributed to 



1 Bettoes are servants who run beside the horses or before them when one is driving. 



2 Only within a few years have horses been used in the streets of Tokio, and a police 

 regulation requires a man to run in front of each one in every crowded thoroughfare. 



