ABSTRACT
Nicholas Kristoff, a New York Times reporter, opens his article "I Lived to Tell About Japan's Medical Miracle" by describing a paradox: Japan has the longest life expectancy in the world, eighty years, yet spends only about half as much as the United States on medical treatment (1997). His assumption, of course, is that "the Japanese medical system is one of the best in the world" and that this fact explains why the population is so healthy. After arriving in Tokyo from a trip to Africa, Kristoff displayed the symptoms of malaria and thus had an unintended opportunity to assess this idea.
