Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 3.djvu/67

 A DIFFERENCE IN THE METABOLISM OF THE SEXES 53

But the excess of male suicides over female is so great that, reckoned absolutely, about one woman to seven or ten men is driven by want to take her life.

Physical suffering and want are among the motives which, constitutional differences aside, would appeal with about the same force to the two sexes. But the great excess both of sui- cide (3 or 4 men to I woman) and of crime (4 or 5 men to I woman), in men, while directly conditioned by a manner of life more subject to vicissitude and catastrophe, is still remotely due to the male, katabolic tendency which has historically eventuated in a life of this nature in the male.

Woman offers in general a greater resistance to disease than man. The following table from the registrar-general's report for I888 1 gives the mortality in England per million inhabitants at all ages and for both sexes from 1854-1887 in a group of dis- eases chiefly affecting young children :

Disease Year Male Female

Smallpox, - - 1854-1887 183 148

Measles, - 1848-1887 426 408

Scarlet fever, - - 1859-1885 763 738

Diphtheria, 1859-1887 157 176

Croup, - 1848-1887 221 192

Whooping cough, 1848-1887 451 554

Diarrhea, dysentery, 1848-1887 932 835

Enteric fever, - 1869-1887 288 277

or, a total mortality of 3421 per million for the males, and 3328 for the females. The greater fatality of diphtheria and whoop- ing cough in the female is attributed to the smaller larynx of girls, and their habit of kissing. In diphtheria, indeed, the num- ber of girls attacked is in excess of the boys, and it does not appear that their mortality is higher when this is considered. 1 Statistics based on nearly half a million deaths from scarlet fever in England and Wales (1859-1885) show a mean annual in males of 778, and in females of 717, per million living. 3 Dr.

1 1'. xxi, Table F, quoted by Campbell, loc.cit., p. 124.

B. A. WHITELBGCI. " Milr-.y Lectures on Changes of Type in Epidemic Dis- eases," Brit. Med.Jour., March 18, 1893.

s A. NEWSHOLME, Vital Statistics, 3d ed., p. 178.