200 EVOLUTION: THE AGES AND TOMORROW 



In the middle of the nineteenth century the population of 

 Japan was stabilized at about 25,000,000. The death rate 

 was high and, apparently, was helped along in equalizing 

 the high birth rate by widespread infanticide. By 1940 the 

 population was about 69,000,000; and only by a very effi- 

 cient and rapid industrialization was life possible on these 

 relatively small islands. Japanese leaders took the "conquest 

 of neighboring lands" as the way to alleviate the pressure. 

 Even during World War II with all the attendant losses 

 from atom bombs and incendiary bombs and men lost on 

 the field of battle, the population rose by about 5,000,000. 

 In the years between 1946 and 1949 under the control of 

 the American Army another 6,000,000 were added, and in 

 1951 the population was about 82,000,000. The excess of 

 births over deaths is now more than 1,500,000 a year and 

 poverty is very widespread. There is almost universal mal- 

 nutrition, and that in spite of a bridge of food ships from the 

 United States. The once thriving silk industry of Japan has 

 been destroyed by the invention of nylon and other syn- 

 thetics. Most observers who have examined this situation 

 find in it a hopeless outlook. 



A striking example of how hygiene can lower the death 

 rate is furnished by the history of the application of Ameri- 

 can hygiene in Japan. The population was treated to mass 

 vaccination against smallpox; it was immunized against ty- 

 phoid, given B.C.G. treatment against tuberculosis, sprayed 

 with DDT, and so on. The death rate fell from a former 

 high of 29 per thousand to 11.4 per thousand in 1948. In 

 this same year the birth rate was the incredible figure of 

 34.8 per thousand. As an instance of the efficacy of the 

 American methods there had been 17,800 cases of smallpox 

 in 1946 in Japan; in 1948 there were only 29 cases. 



The size of a population is controlled solely by the num- 

 ber of births and deaths. Apparently it did not occur to any- 

 one responsible for the policies of the army of occupation 

 that, if the death check were lowered, something should be 



