Evening star., 1932-02-14
AGE SPARED BY FLU
IN GREAT EPIDEMIC
US. Health Statistics Reveal
Extraordinary Curve
of Deaths.

Influenza Is the merciless killer OF
babies and young men and women. II
tends to spare the adolescents and the
aged.
This curious age relationship Of the
disease has Just been uncovered by
Public Health Service Statisticians from
an intensive analysis OF the great World
War epidemic which swept over the
United States 1t may explain the
enormous death rates in the Army
camps and among the young woman
war workers in Washington on differ
ent basis than that of crowded living
conditions and exposure. The analysis
also brings out clearly that the great
pandemic was something baSically quite
different from an unusually high Incl
dence of bad colds and pneumonia.
Deaths from 'hu;' it is pointed out
In the Public Health Service report OF
the study, are nearly always due to
penumonia, which comes as cOmpll-
eating condition. But ordinarily pneu-
monia takes it's highest toll of the very
young and the very old. Individuals in
the prime of life appear to have more
ability to throw off the disease. But
when the pneumonia comes with influ-
enza, the analysis shows, almost the
reverse relationship holds. The infirmi-
ties of middle life and old age might
almost be considered a protection.
Extraordinary Age Curve.
What is called in the Public Health
Service report the extraordinary age
curve" OF the flu epidemic deaths is
shown by the fatalities per 1000 OF
population according to age. The NOR
tality due to influenza was 5 per
1000 for the population as whole,
but for infants under l year 1t was Is
per 1000. From the first to the fourth
year the death rate dropped during the
war epidemic to six per 1000, after
which there was big decline to only
two or three per 1000 from the fifth
to the nineteenth year. Then 1t rose
again rapidly-six per 1000 from 20
to "a and approximately 10 per 1000
from 25 to 90. After 80 the death rate
began to drop again through the next
three decades Of life to the same level
as during childhood and adoleScent
years After so the curve rose again,
but to only half the height reached
during the late tWenties.
A man of % was in almost five times
as much danger as boy OF l3 and
three times as much as man OF "a.
Danger for Women.
The period of the late tWenties, the
death curves show, is almost twice as
dangerous for men as for women. At
all other ages the threat to the two
sexes Is about the same, but between
25 and 29 years approximately 13 men
per 1000 die, compared to approXi-
r1ately seven for women. Women,
however, seem to have a slightly greater
liability to contract influenza in the
first place than men-although this
may be only apparent due to the fact
that the Public Health Service workers
who made the survey usually inter-
viewed only the women. Naturally
they remembered their own light sick
nesses better than those of their hus-
bands
The survey. it is pointed out in the
Public Health Service report, was en-
tirely Of civilian populations, so the
curves are not affected by the great
numbers Of young men who died in
the Army camps. Thus the factor of
living conditions is practically elimi-
mated, SO far as it might have effected
the age-death ratio. The data from
which the curves have been drawn was
obtained by surveys of 10 large cities,
a few small towns in Maryland and one
Maryland rural county. The report on
the statistical analysis was made by
Rollo H. Britten, senior statistician OF
the Public Health Service.