Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 3.djvu/68

 54 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

Fair reports on the mortality from cholera in the epidemic years of 1849, I 8$4, 1866, that "the mean mortality from all causes in the three cholera years was, for males, 19.3 in excess, for females, 17.0 in excess of the average mortality to 10,000 living;

so females suffered less than males The mortality is

higher in boys than in girls at all ages under 15 ; at the ages of reproduction, 25-45, the mortality of women, many of them pregnant, exceeds the mortality of men ; but at the ages after 65 the mortality of men exceeds the mortality of women." 1 Statis- tics show that woman is more susceptible to many diseases, but in less danger than man when attacked, because of her anabolic surplus, and also that the greatest mortality in woman is during the period of reproduction, when the specific gravity of her blood is low and her anabolic surplus small. It is significant also that the point of highest mortality from disease and of the highest rate of suicide in the female, as compared with the male, falls at about 15 years, and is to be associated with the rapid physio- logical changes preceding that time. 2

The numerical relation of the sexes at birth seems to be more variable in those regions where economic conditions and social usages are least settled, but in civilized countries the relation is fairly constant, and statistics of 32 countries and states between the years 1865 and 1883 show that to every 100 girls 105 boys are born, or including stillborn, 100 girls to 106.6 boys. 3 But the mortality of male children so much exceeds that of female that at the age of five the sexes are about in numerical equilib- rium ; and in the adult population of all European countries the average numerical relation of the sexes is reckoned as 102.1 women to 100 men. Von Oettingen gives a representative table 4 compiled from statistics of eight European countries, showing that (omitting the stillborn) 124.71 boys to 100 girls die before the end of the first year, and that between the years of 2 and 5 the proportion is 102.91 boys to 100 girls; or, about 25 per

1 \V. FAKK, / 'Hal Statistic s, p. 385.

'Mortality from cancer is, however, much higher in women than in men. NEWS- HOI. MK, /of. lit., p. 208.

3 PLOSS, loc. /., Vol. I, p. 26. < VON OETTINGEN, loc. cit., p. 58.