Mortality Records in the United States

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 16, 1912

Mortality Records in the United States

ACCORDING to life insurance statistics, the annual death-rate per one thousand population has been reduced since 1880 about twenty per cent. This has been largely due to the education of the masses as to the causes and the prevention of disease, especially the infectious and communicable diseases; namely, diphtheria, smallpox, typhoid fever, tuberculosis; and also to the great diminution in infant mortality, by teaching mothers how to properly care for and feed their little ones.

It is only a few years since an educational campaign was started by one newspaper to check the foolhardy deaths and injuries from Fourth-of-July celebrations, and the annual deaths have been reduced from 466 in 1903 to 57 in 1911.

The campaign in New York City to reduce infant mortality by education, and the Straus pure milk stations have lowered the death-rate from 227 in 1905 to 125 in 1911.

An Interesting Question

A more aggressive educational campaign will give still better results. The above figures are very significant, for there are still remaining preventable or postponable diseases against which no war has been waged, and these diseases have been and are still steadily increasing. Why should the death-rate per one thousand population in the United States show such a heavy increase above the age of forty during recent years, while it has actually decreased during the same period in England and Wales? Can there be any local reason for this excessive loss of American life?

Chronic diseases kill half the people who die in the United States, or about 750,000 annually. Half of these, that is 375,000, would not die if the average health were as good as thirty years ago. The enormous increase in the mortality rate from chronic diseases has escaped the attention of doctors because of the notable decrease in the death-rate, the decrease in the deaths from acute diseases having been so great as to more than equal the increase in deaths from chronic diseases.

The actuaries of prominent life insurance companies assert that the mortality from chronic diseases has doubled in the last thirty years. While medicine has accomplished wonders in reducing the mortality from acute disease, it has signally failed in the prevention and treatment of chronic diseases.

Statistics show a very marked increase in the death-rate above the age of forty from arteriosclerosis, heart and kidney diseases, apoplexy, paralysis, and the other degenerative diseases common to middle life and old age, against which no warfare of prevention has been waged, although they are to a very great extent preventable or postponable diseases if discovered and timely treated.

Is Strenuous Life the Cause

Is the cause of the premature wearing out of the North American due to strenuosity, the struggle for and the worship of the almighty dollar, intemperance in eating or drinking, the use of tobacco, alcohol, etc.? Isn’t a life saved from arteriosclerosis, apoplexy, heart or kidney disease, just as valuable to the community as a life saved from tuberculosis, typhoid fever, or accident?

As arteriosclerosis causes the majority of all deaths after fifty, it being really immaterial whether you call it apoplexy, paralysis, heart or kidney disease, the underlying pathological conditions are in all the cases the same, except only those cases of heart and kidney disease that are the sequelae of rheumatism or scarlet fever. Therefore assuming that arteriosclerosis is the most common cause of death after middle age, and that it is largely a preventable disease, or at the worst a postponable disease, a brief notice of its causes, prevention, and treatment would not be out of place, as in this disease the ounce of prevention is more than worth the pound of cure.

The causes of arteriosclerosis are manifold. Among the most common are the degenerations of old age, the strenuous life, intemperance in eating and drinking, an excess of meat diet, intestinal indigestion, gout, rheumatism, tobacco, alcohol, etc.

The cause or causes should be diligently sought for, and, if possible, removed; the patient should be taught the importance of the simple life, to avoid all excesses, both mental and physical; to observe regular habits; to avoid excesses in eating and drinking, especially the heavy meats, tea, coffee, tobacco, alcohol, etc. Arteriosclerosis is caused by some toxic material circulating in the blood, which is frequently absorbed from the digestive tract, and acts as an irritant to the vessel walls.

Evils of Tobacco

Tobacco is the most extensively used narcotic poison; the annual crop is estimated at three million tons. Tobacco is considered a cause of arteriosclerosis, or functional and organic heart-disease, and of certain forms of blindness.

As nearly all alcoholics are first addicted to the inmoderate use of tobacco, and as tobacco is a sedative poison, and alcohol is a stimulant poison, the use of one in a measure counteracts the effect of the other on the circulation, and therefore tobacco may be regarded as one of the causes of alcoholism.

A committee appointed by the French government reported that tobacco was possibly dangerous at all ages, and especially so in youth. Legislatures are passing laws to restrict the use of the weed to adults, and corporations will not trust cigarette smokers with responsible positions. The record of Yale College for eight years showed that the non-tobacco users were twenty per cent taller than the smokers, twenty-five per cent heavier, and had sixty-six per cent more lung capacity.

Tobacco increases the excitability of the heart by direct action on its nerve ganglions. The spinal nerves become affected, a staggering gait and swimming in the head are prominent symptoms of its poisonous action. Nicotin is a most active poison, resembling hydrocyanic acid in the rapidity of its fatal effects; eight drops will kill a horse, two drops will kill a dog. It affects both the heart and the blood-vessels, this being especially the case in old smokers. Nicotin retards the absorption of oxygen by the blood, and the nervous and arthritic are said to be especially susceptible to its poisonous effect. It is thought that tobacco lessens the resistive capacity, and renders the organism more liable to infection, especially to tuberculosis.

Results of Alcohol

In a lecture on alcohol, the late Robert Bartholow stated to his classes that more than three fourths of the crime, the insanity, poverty, and disease was caused, directly or remotely, by alcohol.

Alcohol fills our jails, hospitals, and almshouses; and a very wise old physician once said that alcohol kills people in a thousand ways. Alcohol is a recognized cause of chronic inflammation of the stomach, hardening of the liver, and degenerative disease of the heart, blood-vessels, kidneys, and of the nervous system.—Washington Star, April 23, 1912.