An extesive survey of labor, health and living conditions was conducted on female members of farm households who are primarily growing vegetables such as lettuce and cabbage in the highlands of Nagano Prefecture. The survey included a follow-up on the attitude of those examined physically toward health.
The busiest season for the vegetable growers extends from July to September. About one-third of the respondents in our survey said that they work more than 12 hours a day during the most part of the period.
From the viewpoint of health, the major problem was connected with pesticides, which are sprayed in relatively large quantities over the vegetable fields. Our findings showed that 65% of the female farmers are engaged in the spraying of pesticides, of whom 13% said that they had suffered from intoxication and other types of physical disturbances.
Many complained about trouble in locomotive organs. To be noted is the finding that a half of the examinees had lower back pain, which presumably has something to do with the half-rising posture which the farmers take for a long time while working in the fields.
Our examination also revealed that about 25% of the women are prone to pyelitis and cystitis.
During the busiest season, these working housewives have to bear particular burdens and pressures that have a profund impact on their ability to carry through house work. A half of the housewives said that they do not have time to do family duties such as cooking, washing and cleaning.
Since physical examinations were carried out during the slack season, the attendance at the briefing on the results of examination was pretty good. Most of the examinees who had been told they need a thorough medical checkup or treatment followed the doctors' advice.
The survey found that a majority of the housewives are doing what they can in order to improve their eating habits. As for the improvement of working conditions, however, they find it difficult to lighten their burdens due to the nature of farm work.

Using various types of monoclonal antibodies and flow cytometer, whole blood analysis were conducted on subsets of lymphocytes taken from peripheral blood samples of healthy persons and umbilical cord blood samples of mature babies.
The findings were as follows:
(1) Normal values of healthy persons (Mean ± SD) were: T-cell phenotypes-OKT3⁺: 66.2 ± 9.4%, OKT4⁺: 40.9±8.3%, OKT8⁺: 28.2±6.6%, OKT11⁺: 80.1±4.8%, OKT4/OKT8 ratio: 1.57±0.60; B-cell phenotype-SmIg (polyvalent) ⁺: 15.9±6.5%; others-OKTal⁺: 12.9±3.2%, Leu7⁺: 16.2±8.9%.
(2) Of the healthy persons, 17% showed 1.0 or below and 6.5% showed 2.5 or above, in the OKT4/OKT8 ratio.
(3) The OKT4+ OKT8/OKT3 ratio was significantly high (P<0.001) in the babies and persons of 40 years and over.
(4) Physiologic variations were noted in some degree in children and the aged, and between men and women. The individual values of the lymphocyte subsets were almost constant, but the difference between individuals was large. It is suggested that the difference of the immune response of each individual or each family partly depends on the different values of the lymphocyte subsets.

We have established NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) in our hospital and have made efforts to improve the contents of medical treatment since 1976 in order to establish a regionalization of neonatal medical treatment.
Thus are main items of the improvement:
1. Completed the apparatuses and equipments needed in Intensive Care.
2. Promoted the communication with regional facilities of delivery so as to enable immature or stressed mature babies to be transported to our hospital at all hours.
3. Made Pediatrician attend all the deliveries with high risk factors and treat the asphyxiated newborn right after the delivery.
We have recorded the results of comparison of the death rate of immature babies at different birth weight treated in our hospital, and of the perinatal mortality in our Obstetric Department in the pie-improvement period of 5 years (1971-1975) and in the post-improvement period of 4 years (1976-1979) respectively.
The results are as follows:
1. A comparison of the death rate of immature babies at different birth weight.
In comparison of pre and post improvement, under 1, 000 g we haven't had enough cases to compare, besides most of the babies have died. However, at the weight between 1, 001-1, 500 g, the death rate has decreased from 39.4% down to 14.3%, at between 1, 501-2, 000g it has decreased from 11.4% down to 8.9%, and at between 2, 001-2, 500 g, from 6.9% to 1.1%.
2. A comparison of the perinatal mortality in our Obstetric Department.
The perinatal mortality has decreased from 18.5% down to 11.8% when we compare pre and post improvement. This result of the decrease depends on the decrease of fetal death at delivery and baby's death in the early neonatal period. Items of the causes of early neonatal death reveals that the deaths of immature babies and asphyxiated mature babies have decreased significantly.
From these results, we are fully realized the benefit of the regionalization of the neonatal medical treatment and I think we ought to promote such regionalization especially in rural area.