Bankers' Magazine and State Financial Register

Longevity. The author regards the proportion of persons reaching advanced age as affording a better test of the vital force of a country than its proportionate mean life. He furnishes a table, from which it appears that, while his returns for 1838-45 furnish, in the 1000 deaths of all ages, 238 aged 70 and above, 86 aged 80 and above, and 8·1 aged 90 and above, the English report gives only the numbers 143, 59, and 8.4 and M. Quetelet's table only 170, 58, and 7. He terms the age of 70 the common age of longevity, as being that which every person not cut off by disease or accident may calculate on reaching; while he fixes the age of exceptional longevity, it is not easy to say why, at 90. Mallet and others have stated that examples of exceptional longevity become rare in a population, in proportion as its mean longevity is augmented,-a proposition to which the author demurs, showing that the number of nonagenarians has regularly increased at Geneva. Thus of 1000 births there survived to the age of 90, 2·05 in 1560-1600, 4.41 in 1700-60, and 5-18 in 1801-13. As respects ultranonagenarians, however, little variety is found in any age or country: 1.54 in the 1000 reached 95 years in 1560-1600, and 1∙10 in 1801-13.—Annales d' Hygiene, tom. xxxviii, pp. 289-320.

Observations on Sanitary Reform.

The conclusions to which our examination of sanitary tests and estimates has led us, are the following:

1. That the advocates of sanitary reform are justified in assuming two per cent. as the rate to which the mortality of all towns, and a fortiori of the country at large, may, by proper sanitary measures, be reduced.

2. That there are fair grounds for assuming for the whole of the population a still more favorable rate of mortality.

3. That the estimated annual sacrifice of 35,000 lives in England and Wales, and upwards of 60,000 in the United Kingdom, is not greatly exaggerated; and that a more moderate estimate of 30,000 for England and Wales, and 51,000 for the United Kingdom, may be very safely assumed.

4. That in measuring the waste of life in counties or towns, the standard of two per cent. is to be preferred, as more moderate and less open to objection, to that of the healthiest registration district.

5. That the average age at death, as well as the number out of which one will die annually, are fallacious tests of the sanitary condition of a population, and cannot be employed for that purpose without leading to serious errors.

6. That the only accurate tests are those founded jointly on the ages of the living and the ages at death, whether they take the shape of lifetables, or assume the transfer of one population with its peculiar distribution of ages to other localities, to be there subject to the mortality at each age proper to those localities.

7. That the estimates of the years of life lost by the inhabitants of towns, and by the community at large, founded on the average age at death, are greatly exaggerated; but that when measured by the more correct standard which embraces the ages at death and the ages of the living, this waste is still of appalling magnitude.

8. That the alleged coincidence of an excessive reproduction and a high mortality, is not borne out to the full extent of the calculations of the advocates of sanitary reform, when the ages of the reproductive population are taken into account; but that, in consequence partly of reproduction, and partly of immigration, the worst districts maintain their population, and sometimes show a very rapid rate of increase.

9. That there is no sufficient evidence that workingmen are subject to a higher rate of mortality than other members of society; but that on the contrary, there is the best reason to believe that, in spite of the unfavorable influences by which they are surrounded, they are longer lived even than the gentry.

10. That this circumstance, however, does not furnish any valid argument against the injurious effects attributed to those influences; inasmuch as the causes which injure the health and shorten the lives of the two classes respectively are altogether distinct from each other.

11. That there is reason to believe that the lives of the higher classes are shortened in those towns and districts in which the mortality of the general population is high.

12. That the estimated amount of sickness, like the estimated waste of life, expressed in years, has been somewhat exaggerated by the advocates of sanitary reform; that 20 cases of unnecessary sickness to one unnecessary death, is a safer proportion to assume than 28 to 1; and that the total cases of unnecessary sickness will have to be reduced accordingly.

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The rate of mortality in England and the United States of America differs very slightly, being one in 44-55, and one in 44-60 respectively, or in both cases, about 22 in the thousand; but the average age at death is in England 29 years, and in America only 20 years. This striking difference in the age at death is obviously due, not to the superior sanitary condition of the English population, but to its greater age. The difference between the two populations in respect to age is well shown in the following statement: "that whilst in England there are 5025 persons between 15 and 50, who have 3610 children or persons under 15, in America there are 4789 persons living between 15 and 50 years of age who have 4371 children dependent upon them. In England there are in every 10,000 persons 1365 who have obtained above 50 years' experience; in America there are only 830."

Again, if we compare England and Wales in 1841 and 1821, we arrive at the remarkable result that though the rate of mortality differs in a very insignificant degree, the average age at death, if the mortality of the several ages for the two periods be assumed to be that of 1841, differs by little less than five years; the average age for 1821 being 24.89 years; and for 1841, 29.46 years.

The same striking differences are observable if we turn to the table already laid under contribution, which contrasts the metropolis with the counties and large towns of England, assuming the population of the metropolis to be transferred to those counties and towns. The average age at death in the metropolis is 29-06, and in the county of Hereford, 38-42; but if the population of London were placed under the sanitary influences of Herfordshire, the average age at death would become 30-54; in other words, the inhabitants of the metropolis, one with

Longevity.-The author regards the proportion of persons reaching advanced age as affording a better test of the vital force of a country than its proportionate mean life. He furnishes a table, from which it appears that, while his returns for 1838-45 furnish, in the 1000 deaths of all ages, 238 aged 70 and above, 86 aged 80 and above, and 8.1 aged 90 and above, the English report gives only the numbers 143, 59, and 8.4 and M. Quetelet's table only 170, 58, and 7. He terms the age of 70 the common age of longevity, as being that which every person not cut off by disease or accident may calculate on reaching; while he fixes the age of exceptional longevity, it is not easy to say why, at 90. Mallet and others have stated that examples of exceptional longevity become rare in a population, in proportion as its mean longevity is augmented, a proposition to which the author demurs, showing that the number of nonagenarians has regularly increased at Geneva. Thus of 1000 births there survived to the age of 90, 2.05 in 1560-1600, 4.41 in 1700-60, and 5.18 in 1801-13. As respects ultranonagenarians, however, little variety is found in any age or country: 154 in the 1000 reached 95 years in 1560-1600, and 110 in 1801-13.—Annales d' Hygiene, tom. xxxviii, pp. 289-320.