ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to shed new light on the existence of the disease beriberi that not only survived during an epidemiologic transition in modern Japan but contributed to the fluctuations in infant mortality (IM), especially in the city of Osaka, the center of Japanese economy between the early modern period until the early twentieth century and where some marked socioeconomic changes occurred during urban-centered industrialization. Any increase in the infant mortality rate (IMR) is a serious problem not only for the couples directly involved but for society itself. Moreover, changes in infant mortality have both a selection effect and a scarring effect simultaneously. The former means that, from a eugenics point of view, the lower the IMR, the more babies survive, while the latter sees a lower IMR as having resulted from an improved disease environment for babies. In Osaka city, in all periods and for both sexes, the beriberi death rate correlated positively with the IMR.
