In the rural district of Hokkaido, which holds 70% of the whole area of Hokkaido, those villages where the death-rate of sucklings is of the order of 40's (per 1, 000 births) come up to more than one third of all the villages, whereas in the cities it ranges between 20 and 39 A variety of factors may be accountable. With a view to contributing something to the clarification of the causation, I should like to introduce the existing conditions of a typical rural village located in the east of Hokkaido.
1. In comparison with cities, there are more premature babies born in the village, and furthermore about one half of the babies there are below the standard in weight and height.
2. Beginning and completion of the process of ablactation are delayed;diet is of ten low in protein and fat. There are many cases of rachitis ascribed to malnutrition; and a considerable number of babies suffer from anemia or eczema
3. Luxatio coxae congenita is found in 17% of the babies and it is often accompanied with rachitis;and there are many artificially fed babies.
4. On the other hand, the sleeping hours of nursing mothers are insufficient. There Were many hypertensive cases among them, and 37% of them showed decrease in serum protein.
5. Toxicosis is observed in 62% of pregnant women.
6. Cases of artificial abortion are numbered lately 1.3-1.5 times as many as the number of births.
7.38% of families are still using “izuko (a small cradle made of straw traditionally used in the northern parts of Japan, which is found to be detrimental to the baby's growth)”.
The factors enumerated above would all in all be accountable for the aggravating conditions of sucklings: the poor health conditions of pregnant mothers play such injurious effects on their potential babies that they give birth to premature babies, and the dissatisfactory environment following the birth contributes to the appearance of undernourished sucklings-a vicious cycle which terminates in deaths. In order to rectify the present situation the following plans would be effective. First of all, births should be controlled so as to take place at intervals of 3 or 4 years, preferrably from spring to summer; women in pregnancy and in nursing period should take diet especially rich in protein and vitamins; sucklings should be placed under careful health control including timely ablactation and prevention against rachitis; besides, the authorities concerned and the health centers are required to collaborate more positively in the health campaign.If all such efforts are made, mothers and sucklings in rural areas may no doubt attain the health standards held in the cities.

Although it has already been pointed out that the growth of skeleton-carpus varies in urban and in rural areas, this time a survey was made to disclose whether there is any noticeable difference between purely agricultural and non-agricultural families (merchant, civil servant, laborer, etc.) within one and the same rural community.
1. Ossification area: Babies from agricultural families were inferior in each age group.
2. In cases of babies under 6-months old whose nutrition index (Kaup) showed less than 14.9, those from agricultural families showed inferior ossification.
3. Delayed ablactation was observed more often in babies from agricultural families and such cases showed delayed ossification of skeleton-carpus.
4. The development of skeleton-carpus was inferior in babies whose mothers showed an advanced fatigue, i. e. premature senility: this phenomenon was more often observed in babies from agricultural families.
5. The mothers of babies from agricultural families more often showed a lower serum-protein value, and the babies were in the state of under-nutrition parallel thereto.