From December 1997 to February 1998, prescriptions for 875 patients with colds at the three institutions listed were investigated. The prescriptions were divided into three groups according to the nature of the drugs; modern drugs, Kampo medicine and combined use of modern and Kampo medicine. Mean age, the number of prescribed drugs and the days of prescription were checked and the medicinal expenses were calculated. When using only modern drugs, daily expenses were 203.8yen in average. On the other hand, using only Kampo medicine they were 119.6yen. When using combination of modern and Kampo medicine, the expenses reached to 215.9yen. These results indicated that Kampo medicine was the most economical, because using only Kampo medicine made the expenses approximately 60% less than those using only modern drugs. Thus, at least 41.5 billion yen could be saved in 1998 calculating from the market share of the national medical supplies in each therapeutic category. In conclusion, treatment of colds with only Kampo medicine was considered to be the most cost-efficient way.

Based on two years working of “the enlarged working group for the curriculum of chemistry for medical education”, a provisional plan of the curriculum of chemistry for medical students is proposed. The article is consist of four sections; namely A: general problems, B: “chemistry” as a general education, C: purpose and specific problems of the general education for medical students, D: a provisional plan of the curriculum of chemistry for medical students.
The main part D is consist of three subsections: namely (1) a plan of the curriculum of physical and inorganic chemistry, (2) a plan of the curriculum of organic chemistry, (3) a plan of the curriculum of experiments.