Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 26.djvu/543

Rh the Southern States of Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Tennessee have an average of 2·9 per 100; the Eastern States of Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Vermont have an average of 1·1; the Central States of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin, also 1·1; in the Pacific States the society is not thirty-five years old, so that no statistics are obtainable from that quarter; while from other sections the returns were not in a shape to supply the requisite data. But enough was obtainable to show that on the most favorable estimate in tropical States the death-rate is twice as high as in the temperate zone.

Making due allowance for the failure of any of the subordinate officials to send complete returns of their deaths, it is a fair conclusion from such statistics as are available that the average death-rate of the better class of the adult male population of this continent is for the temperate regions 1·5 in every 100; and for the tropical regions three in every 100.

But it is in the matter of sickness that the vital statistics of the United States and Canada have hitherto been most deficient; and in this connection the operations of a large society making weekly payments to its sick members, and thus keeping some record of the amount of sickness experienced by them, can be made useful.

The returns available here, it must be noted, do not give the full sickness experience. Reports are made only of the number of weeks for which sick-benefits are paid. Usually a person must be a member a certain length of time, from one to six months, before he is entitled to benefits; in some localities no benefits are paid for the first week of sickness; members who are in arrears to the society receive no benefits. So that the actual average of sickness will be somewhat in advance of the figures given.

Taking the entire society in the United States and Canada, we find the following returns for the last seven years:

Submitting these returns to the same system of grouping that we adopted with the mortality returns, we have the following result: