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On some Considerations suggested by the Annual Reports of the Registrar-General, being an Inquiry into the Question as to how far the Inordinate Mortality in this Country, exhibited by those Reports is controllable by Human Agency (Part I)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 August 2016

H. W. Porter Esq.
H. W. Porter Esq.*
Affiliation:
Alliance Assurance Company Institute of Actuaries Statistical Society
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Extract

Upon perusal of the Annual Reports of the Registrar-General, and of the valuable analyses by Dr. Farr that accompany them, we can scarcely fail to be struck with the alarming fatality which appears to prevail in this country from certain classes of diseases; and the inquiry naturally arises in our minds, whether we have any control over this excessive mortality: is, in fact, any proportion thereof preventable?

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Institute of Actuaries , Volume 9 , Issue 1 , April 1860 , pp. 12 - 41
Copyright
Copyright © Institute and Faculty of Actuaries 1861

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References

page 24 note * Since writing the foregoing, I have been favoured by Mr. David Arnot, the Secretary of the Metropolitan Typographical Widows' Fund, with the Annual Reports of that Society extending over 10 years, from which I find that the average age at death of the printers who were members of the Fund was 48 years.

The number of deaths caused by phthisis and other diseases of that class among the members, in the ten years ending 31st December, 1859, was 101 out of a total number of 173, being 58¾ per cent of the whole.

We find, accordingly, from these returns, that 4 in 7 die of these diseases.

Dr. Guy, it will be remembered, ascertained that in the cases he investigated among printers, 2 in 7 fell victims to phthisis; probably, however, he did not, as I have done, include other diseases of the respiratory organs, which would account for some difference in our results.

It must be remembered, however, that men who become members of provident societies are naturally of a superior class. They are, besides, in the enjoyment of good health at the time of entry; and, accordingly, more or less select lives.

page 34 note * Vide the 14th and 15th Reports of the Registrar-General, p. XV.