ABSTRACT
Standards of sanitation and public health practice in Japan had declined during the war. Public water supply and waste collection facilities had been severely damaged in all areas that had been bombed. Enteric diseases were responsible for the second highest number of deaths in Japan at the beginning of the occupation, exceeded only by tuberculosis, which was the number one killer. The dysenteries, typhoid and paratyphoid fevers, and poliomyelitis in subclinical form were all prevalent and were particularly hard to combat because of the poor environmental standards of the country, which were aggravated by the widespread destruction of the war. Japanese B encephalitis is a viral disease that was identified by a Japanese; hence, the name. This disease causes inflammation of the brain and the spinal cord. A vaccine was developed in the United States by the Army Research Institute, and quantities were shipped to Japan to test its protective capabilities.
