Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 20.djvu/235

* VITAL STATISTICS. 187 VITAL STATISTICS. tries, and those few American States for which information is obtaiiiahlc, Kn^land haviiif,' a death rate (if l'J.2 tor thi- iK'oadc l.S.S l-li:i, Norway 10.9, Massacliusetts I'J.li, and Khodc Island 20.2. The death rate is usually somewhat hi^dicr in cities than in rural districts, but with tlic in- crease of sanitary precautions and the develop- ment of preventive nietheine the dill'erence be- tween city and country is steadily decreasing. Thus in the United States in 1H!)0 the average deatli rate of the cities of the .egistration States was 22.1 and that in the rural di.stricts lo.3. In 1!)0 the death rate of the cities had fallen to 18. G, while that of the rural districts had risen to 15.4, so that the apparent diflerence between the two was reduced one half. Deaths are re- corded with less completeness in the rural dis- tricts, a fact which would tend to exaggerate the real difference between city and country, and it is probable that the foregoing figures for the rural districts understate the true death rate and that the slight increase during the decade testifies to an increase of accuracy rather than to an in- crease in the number of deaths. Sex. 'herever records e.xist the average death rate for males of all ages is higher than the death rate for females. Thus, in England and Wales on the average of the ten years 1881-90 the death rate of males was 20.2 and that of females 18.0, and similarly in the registration cities of the United States in 1900 the death rate of males was 20.0 and that of females 17.2. Age. The first year of life and the years of extreme old age are those in which danger of death is greatest. Thus the death rate of male children in England during the first year of life was 161,0, a rate that is not equaled for any subsequent year of life until the age of eighty- one is reached. The lowest death rate for each sex is reached at about eleven to thirteen years of age, when the death rate in healthy communi- ties is from 4.0 to 5.0, not more than one-fourth of the average for all ages. The ages from three to fifty or slightly above fifty are the healthy years of life, or the years at whiclt the death rate is below the average for all ages. The larger the proportion of the population belonging to these ages, the lower the death rate is likely to be. Cities usually contain a much smaller proportion of persons over fifty than do the country dis- tricts about them and not much if any larger a proportion of children. They also contain a larger proportion of females than the country districts in their vicinity. These differences in age and sex composition of the population of cities, giving them a disproportionate number of the healthy ages and the healthier sex, tend to mask the real difference between the death rate of city and country districts. Age and Sex. The lower death rate of females holds for nearly all periods of life, the main ex- ception being during ten or fifteen years below the ageof twenty, when the death rate of females is as high as or a little higher than that of males. Modern civilization lias so reduced the perils of childbirth that women in early adult years, although subject to this special d.inger in addition to those common to both sexes, have a death rate lower than men of the same ages. The death rate of English women, twenty" to twenty-four, is 5.3. that of English men of the same age, 5.7, and the rehxtion in other parts of Vol. XX.— 13. the world is the same. But while tljc difference even at this age is slightly in favor of the female sex, the difference at younger and older ages is much greater. The following figures give the death rate of each se.x in the registration area of the United States for 1900: Death rate Uatlo of male rate to female takt'ii as 100 Of males Of females 0- 1 66.7 4.4 6.7 9.8 12.4 24.1 47.5 4.2 C.l 8.6 1U.6 20.1 6-14 105 16-24 K-H 3.5-44 112 45-64 65 110 If the death rate for individual years were ob- tainable with accuracy, it would probably appc^ar that in the United States, as in England, Norway, Prussia, and other countries, there were a few years of age in which females had a higher death rate than males. But the salient fact shown by the figures is that the differences are at a maxi- mum during the years of infancy and above the age of forty-live, and at a minimum at the health- iest period of life. Infant Mortality. The death rate of children constitutes a very sensitive barometer of sani- tary conditions, partly because that class of the population migrates little, but mainly because of its extreme sensitiveness to sanitary and hy- gienic conditions. There is hardly any'difference between different countries, different social classes, or difi'erent periods of time, more pro- nounced than in infant mortality. In Norway, for example, only about 10 per cent, of the chil- dren born alive die before they reach one year old; in Russia the proportion rises to one-foi'irtli, and in Bavaria to three-tenths. In Massachu- setts about one-sixth of the children born die under one year of age. According to the figures of the Twelfth Census, the death rate of whites under one year of age is 158, that of the colored 372, indicating that the infant mortality of the colored population exceeds that of Austria, Rus- sia, or Bavaria. Race. The influence of race upon vitality is one which cannot be clearly distinguished from that of other factors usually associated with it. In the countries of Europe which still furnish most of our information regarding vital statis- tics the dift'erences of race are elusive, and in con- sequence this distinction is seldom, if ever, drawn in the vital statistics of those. countries. For the native population of Australia and New Zea- land vital statistics are almost entirely lacking, but what indications there are point to a hig|h death rate and a low vitality. Statistics on this subject from South Africa have been biit recently organized and are still too slight to be signifi- cant. The largest body of evidence on this topic is that furnished by the vital statistics of the United States. In the year 1899-1900, for which the vital sta- tistics of the Twelfth Census speak, 475,640 deaths of whites and 35,710 deaths of negroes were reported in the registration area, including nearly two-fifths of the population of the coun- try, mainly in the Northeast States and in cities. These are deaths enough to give reasonably ac- curate rates for the two races. They show a