A preliminary investigation on the traumatic accidents of farmers engaged in mechanized agricultural work was carried out from the viewpoint of epidemiology.
The incidence of traumatic accidents was higher in the group of machine operators than of non-operators, the male group than the female group, and the middle-age group and the group with over 4 years' career.
It was found from the cohort study that for the recent several years the male operators have been constantly in the traumatizing risk, but in the case of female oprators the traumatizing risk is increasing in the recent few years.
Traumatic accidents occured frequently during the busiest farming season and during 10-11 o'clock in the morning and3-5 o'clock in the afternoon.In the subjective symptoms a marked sign of fatigue
From these facts, the high incidence of traumatic accidents might be attributed to the great strain of mechanized agricultural work. was found.
Authors keenly feel the necessity of ergonomic case-study on each traumatic accident.

The survey was done in a district where the mechanization of agriculture had advanced and part-time farming had been prevailing.
Agricultural accidents, picked up from the insurance documents of the Agricultural Cooperative Association from 1977 to 1981, were analyzed statistically.
Results obtained are as follows.
1, The agricultural machines related to accidents were two-wheel tractors, combines, grass cutters and four-wheel tractors. These four types of machines occupied 72% of all accidents.
2. The accidents were observed most frequently in busy seasons i. e. spring and autumn, and from 10 to 11 a.m. and 3 to 5 p.m. in a day.
3. Because of part-time farming, one third of the accidents occured on Sundays and national holidays.
4. The accidents by two-wheel tractors and four-wheel tractors occured on the road, 67% and 49% respectively. There occured 86% of the accidents by combines in the field, and 85% of the injuries by combines were on hands and fingers. The injuries by grass cutters occured frequontly on legs and eyes, 58% and 18% respectively. One third of the eye injuries resulted in anopsia.
5. There were few overlaps between the cases collected by the prefectural office and those from the insurance documents. Slight-injury cases were scarcely found in the insurance documents. These facts indicate the present information-collecting systems for the agricultural accidents are incomplete in this district.

Noise exposure levels of 40 cases of farmers were measured by use of the equivalent sound level meters (Rion EQ-04).
Legs during all over the day ranged from 74.3 dB-A to 89.3 dB-A. It can be seen that noise exposure levels during all over the day were mostly determined by amounts of the sound energy exposed by agricultural works.
Most of farmers were exposed high level of noise in their home, and even in rest times.
Legs during the agricultural work ranged from 70.4 to 100.6 dB-A, being attributed by agricultural machinary noise.
Legs measured in the present study were compared with the criterion for noise of the Environmental Protection Agency, U. S. and discussed from the viewpoint of hygiene.

Isolated left-side inferior vena cava is rare, there being only four cases associated with abdominal aortic aneurysm reported so far in the Japanese literature. A 72-year-old man was admitted to our hospital for the evaluation of an abdominal pulsatile mass. CT scan revealed abdominal aortic aneurysm with isolated left-sided inferior vena cava. Aneurysmectomy and bifurcated graft replacement was performed with retracting inferior vena cava. The postoperative course was uneventful.

Vibration and noise of three types of tractors were measured under various conditions of operation from the viewpoint of occupational health. The other hand, daily records of operation time of tractors were collected from 135 households and exposure time to tractor vibration were estimated from these data.
Vibration spectra are showed in Fig. 1 and noise spectra in Fig. 2. The peaks of vibration spectra of tractor's seats are in the high frequency range corresponding to rev count of the engines. However, components of the low frequency range become often hygienic problem, when compared to ISO's Standard 2631-1974 (E) “Guide for the evaluation of human exposure to whole-body vibration.”
Vibration acceleration levels of the tractor operating with various accessories are higher in the low frequency range than those without accessories.
Acceration levels of Y and Z directions are higher than that of X direction and unfavorable hygienically. Antivibration countermeasure should be taken to the Y direction not only to the Z direction.
Noise level of tractors exceed the hearing conservation criteria for daily 8 hour exposure, when they run at high speed. More serious problem is that the noise disturb speech communication between the driver and his co-workers or among co-workers. To prevent labor accidents tractor noise should be controlled.

To assess the effects of short term physical training on left ventricular dimensions and function, 12 young sedentery subjects were studied with echocardiography before and after 10 weeks of endurance physical conditioning consisted of a 3000 meter running protocol 3 days a week.
Exercise training led to an increase in maximal oxygen uptake (Vo₂max: 48.3±4.4 versus 60.0±6.2ml/kg/min: p<0.001) . This functional improvement, however, was not accompanied by any significant change in resting echocardiographic measurements including left ventricular dimensions, ejection fraction and mean velocity of circumferential fiber shortening.
On semi-supine exercise echocardiography no significant change was revealed after 10 weeks of physical training.
This study suggests that short term physical training in young subjects result in significant increase in Vo₂max but this functional improvement is not always associated with significant alterations in left ventricular dimensions and function as observed by echocardiogram.

Health problems of the farmers were surveyed in two districts where progressed mechanization, green hause culture or other improved management systems were introduced.
The following results were obtained:
1. Long daily working hours remain as before, therefore, sleeping hours and hausehold hours in female are shortened in busy seasons.
2. By introduction of joint management or cooperative manegement working hours of female farmers were shortened in some cases, but not enough.
3. New health hazards as noise, vibration, toxic chemicals, continuing of forced posture, forced repetitive motion of hands and arms are being marked.
4. High incidence of subjective symptoms relating to their acute or chronic fatigue were obserbed in most type of agriculture, which were considered to indicate that modernization of agricultural production had been promoted in lacking of consideration for farmer's health.

A questionnaire survey and patch testing on skin disorders were conducted on 20 chrysanthemum growers (15 males and 5 females) in the Kohoku district of Shiga Prefecture in order to clarify the etiology and make a plan for prevention. The results were as follows;
1) Thirteen subjects suffered from skin disorders and 8 of them had contacted dermatitis since they started the cultivation of chrysanthemum.
2) It was suggested that the skin disorders might be associated with such types of work as “lower -leaves pruning, ” “harvesting” and “shipping, ” during which they were closely in contact with chrysanthemum. However, our survey found that most the subjects paid less attention to chrysanthemum than pesticides to prevent skin disorders.
3) The patch test found 10 out of the 13 subjects who had suffered from skin disorders manifested sensitization reactions to chrysanthemum or pesticides and 7 of them to both.
Dermatologically, the disorders were diagnosed as allergic contact dermatitis caused by chrythanthemum or pesticides, but it was difficult to clarify which was the main factor of contact dermatitis.
4) In order to prevent contact dermatitis among chrythanthemum growers, hygienic education on the sensitizing activity of chrysanthemum and guidance on effective protection against chrysanthemum and pesticides are needed.

We used near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) to study noninvasively the effects of aging on changes in muscle oxygenation during steady bicycle exercise. For the study, 6 healthy young males and 13 healthy elderly male volunteers were recruited. To evaluate the physical fitness level and to determine exercise intensity, the ventilatory threshold (VT) was first measured. As a result, elderly subjects were divided into two groups according to O₂ uptake at VT (Elderly-H ; 936.0±26.4, Elderly-L ; 695.3±29.9, Young ; 790.0±51.19 ml) . Secondly we measured muscle oxygenation by NIRS at rest and during exercise at relative work intensities of VT ; 20%, 40%, 60%, 80% and 100%. In all cases muscle oxygenation at rest and during exercise was expressed as a relative value from 100% oxygenation (oxygen capacity) established by thigh occlusion (ischemia) . All subjects showed progressive deoxygenation with increasing intensity. There were no differences between the three groups in muscle oxygenation during exercise at relative work intensity of VT. These data suggest that aging and physical fitness level have no effect on muscle oxygenation below relative work intensity of VT.

An investigation on the efficacy of preoperative autologous blood donation in open-heart surgery was made using frozen red blood cells and MAP red blood cells in cooperation with the Red Cross Blood Center. In 109 cases which received the donation, the rate of cases which received no homologous blood transfusion was 93.6% (35.3% in the cases without donation). Even in the cases of redo operation or aortic surgery, in which extensive blood loss is expected, 75% of those given a donation of 1600-2000ml frozen blood required no homologous blood transfusion. The hemoglobin concentration in the cases which received blood donation for more than 4 weeks did not decrease, indicating that safe donation is feasible. The aforementioned frozen and MAP blood preparations can be preserved for a long period so that blood donation can be started even before deciding on the date of operation. Also, its usefulness is not affected by the postponement of the operation. Furthermore, there was no problem in safety with respect to transfer, treatment, and storage of the autologous blood in cooperation with the Red Cross Blood Center, suggesting that this is useful as a preoperative donation method, especially in small- and middle-scale hospitals, which have no separate blood centers. However, there were 2 cases in which aggravated symptoms were noted after blood collection. Therefore, it is important to carefully select cases for autologous blood donation in open-heart surgery and it is desirable to set up appropriate donation schedules.