Omaha daily bee., 1910-09-11

II win be expected that the Forthcoming
returns OF the census bureau will show
that the life Of the average American
citizen Is several years longer now than
ia 1900. The span Of human life has been
lengthening In America during the last
half century at remarkable rate. The
many agencies that are engaged In arous-
ing the public conscience to the dangers
Of contagious disease. together with the
successes that are attending the ministra-
lions of preventive medicine. give hope
that by 1925 the average American will
have twenty years more OF life than his
grandfather had century before
\ table OF the expectations Of human life
recently compiled in the healthy dis
tricts' Of England and Wales. where the
death rate is practically the same as that
OF the United States, is full of food for
thought and shows the transitory status
Of human life in a remarkable way. The
statistics give moving picture Of an
Imaginary nation of iOOOO0.OOO souls all
born I'm a given year. As the film reels
off. one beholds the great battle for sur
yival. hears the funeral marches and sees
the unnumbered thousands falling out OF
the ranks as the years go by.
In the first year of the life of this imag-
mary nation death takes its tremendous
toll Nearly I,OO0OOO fall In the great
battle for existence. One-fifth as many
die in that great first year Of carnage as
die in all the following sixty-four years
If 100000 OF the babies which die could
be saved through their first year, more
than five ont of every nine would live
until they were g. In other words, when
infantile mortality is cut down as low as
childhood mortality, medical science will
be able to offer to the nation the finest
army that ever marched under a battle
flag, recruited entirely from the lives II
saves in that dread first year of babyhood
As the picture moves on we see the grea
nation of 2-year-olds taking a firmer grasI
on life. Each year thereafter until tn,
18th year. the mortality becomes less
| There are fewer victims both relatively
and absolutely, in the twelfth year thar
| at any other period up to the time wher
senilty begins to set in and old age be
comes the ally of death. In the twenty
| first year humanity seems to be CATCHING
its second wind. When this one-age repub
| lie becomes 65. nearly one-half Of tn,
original 100000 900 are dead. The succeed
| ing twenty-five years are more fatal IL
their consequences than the preceding
| sixty-four. During this quarter of a cen
fury about 100000 die
In ninety years after the birth Of thi
imaginary republic only 100000 people ar
left to maintain it. BY the time Of IL
! centenary all but 1900 will be gone. A
100 years there still will be 800 left. A
lO7 there will be only a hundred hoar!
headed survivors, but the ensuing yea
viii see the last OF these
The United States is now a nation OF APP
proximately 100 900 souls. Based on tn
tGngland-Wales mortality table, only
few hundred of these will be here whe
the census OF 201O is taken. BY 2O17 tn
last person now living will have gone t
his reward, and the children of the thir
and fourth generations will be the maker
of the nation.
What is being accomplished In promot
ing the longevity of the race is shown b
the statistics of mortality in the variou
countries of the globe. In 1903 the MOI
| tality rate in the United States, as dis
closed by the census returns for the reg
istration area was 1853 out OF every 1000
In 1900 1t was 176 out of every 10000.
another way we get fine picture of wha
medical science is doing for the America