A socio-medical study on 71 cases of infanticide in japan

Abstract

The authors collected 71 cases of infanticide from the records of the National Police Agency in Japan (all victims were less than one year old) and divided into the filicide group (18 cases) and the neonaticide group (53 cases). Neonaticide is defined as the killing of a neonate on the day of its birth. Filicide is operationally defined as the murder of children older than 24 hours. The neonaticide group is subdivided into ‘Anomie type’ and ‘Mabiki type or thinning out type’. The Mabiki type corresponds to the ancient means of the population control. Mabiki is a Japanese term which signifies ‘thinning out’, originally used in plants, later applied to killing babies for population control in older days. The Anomie type is a product of ‘anomie situation’ in modern society and has possibly been increasing in number. © 1981, The Keio Journal of Medicine. All rights reserved.