Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1886-10-11
SHORT-LIVED.
Mortality statistics of Various Countries
Show that Americans Are Short-LiFed.

MS recently printed com ptFdt4fS an
alysis Of the mortality statistics of the
United States, France, England, and
Ireland, which is anything bat hatter-
ing IN the presentation it makes of the
probabilities eff life in this country.
The tables for this country are ihOse
found in the volume Of the last census
report. which has recently been issued,
and the tables of the other countries are
made up from official data Of the same
period. As in the year 1880 there was
no general epidemic in this country,
and rs il is not known that that year
was IN any way out OF the common in
the countries Of Western Europe, it is
presumable that the record presented is
a fair average Of other years.
Not TO confuse the reader by statisti-
cal tabulations, il may suffice TO say
that the tables in the census report
show that the average duration Of life
of people in the United States is less
than twenty years; that is to say, of all
OF those born fully one-half die before
they have completed their twentieth
year. OF course, the death rate is
largest among very young children,
about 40 per cent dying before the age
of five. But after that period the death
rate with Us seems TO maintain itself
on what might be termed the high pres
sure scale, and thus only twenty-five
American men and women out of 100
live to be more than fifty years of age,
and only about four out Of 100 live to
be eighty years of age. 1t is asserted in
the census reports that the rates of NOR
tally are higher IN the large cities than
in the country districts though it is
quite probable that this increase is
shown in the mortality of children
under five years of age, rather than in
the rates of death appertaining 10 those
OF more advanced years.
The comparison of our tables with
those OF England is somewhat to our
disadvantage, though not as much so
as similar comparisons instituted be-
tween the American rates of mortality
and those of France and Ireland The
death rate under five years of age in
England is, on the whole, higher than
that of this country. On the other
hand, u per cent of our population die
between the ages of five and twenty
years, while in England the death rate
of this period is only s per cent of the
whole. In the United States a per
cent Of the population die between the
ages of twenty and fifty, while in En-
gland the average mortality is only q
per cent between the ages of twenty and
tifty-five. 1t thus transpires that there
are, proportionately, as many people in
England who live to be seventv-five
years of age as there are people in the
L,
years of age.
But when we come to France the
showing is very much more to our dis
advantage. AS we said above, only
twenty-five people out of 100 in the
United States live to the age of fifty,
while in France forty-eight people out
OF 100 attain that age; and while with
us only about 10 per cent of the in
habitants reach the age of threescore
years and ten, in France % per cent of
all those born survive that traditional
limit of human life. The death rate
among children in France is equally re-
markable, standing as 26 per cent for
those under five years, to 40 per cent as
given in our statistics.
In Ireland the death rate among
children under five years of age is about
the same as in France. Where we lose
half OF our population by the age of
twenty the Irish only part with 80 per
cent Of theirs, and almost one-half of
the deaths are of persons over forty-five
years of age. The Irish do not seem to
live to rs long Il period as the French,
and yet nearly five in 100 of the deaths
are of persons over eighty-fve years of
age-a showing in all respects better
than ours.
The conclusions to be drawn from
this exhibit, says the Boston Herald, are
entirely to the detriment of the Ameri-
can systems of social and business life.
The high rate of mortality among chill
dren under five years of age may be Cue
to number of different causes, such as
insufficient care, want of physical
strength on the part of parents, and,
perhaps, abnormal conditions of life
The exceptional high rate of mortality
at the period between ten and twenty
years of age can doubtless be attributed
to the social excitement, verging al
most on dissipation, in which young
people in this country are allowed to
indulge, and, perhaps, also to the ten
sion upon the physical system of our
methods of education. II is certainly a
significant fact that, proportionately,
nearly twice as many Americans die in
the decade between their tenth and
twentieth years as English young people
of similar ages. That so few Of our
people live to be over fifty is equally
significant; for, while we have better
food and better lodgings, and while the
sanitary conditions of existence are
studied here with, perhaps, as great