the return comparable with those for communities differently
constituted is somewhat complicated, but it is amply justified
by its necessity in adapting the ngures to the important services
they perform in actuarial and sanitary science. This subject
can only be dealt with here in outline. In the first place, sex
must be distinguished, because, from infancy upwards, except
between the ages of 10 and 20, the mortality amongst females
is considerably less than amongst the other sex, and appears,
too, to be declining more rapidly. So far as adult life is concerned
this superior vitality is no doubt attributable to comparative
immunity from the risks and hardships to which men
are exposed, as, also, to the weaker inclination of women towards
intemperance of different kinds. Thus, though the generally
higher proportion of females in the community may seldom be
enough to depress more than slightly the death-rate as a whole,
it has a substantial effect upon it at the ages where women are in
more marked numerical predominance, as in later life, and in
places where the number of domestic servants is unusually
great. Age is a factor still more important than sex in a return
intended to serve as an index of mortality. The liability to
death is extremely high amongst infants, decreasing with every
month of life during the first year, but continuing above the
mean rate until about the age of live. From the latter period
until the fifteenth or sixteenth year vitality is at its best.
The death-rate then gradually rises, slowly till 25, more rapidly
later, when, from about 45 onward deterioration asserts itself
more pronouncedly, and by three score years and ten the rate
begins to exceed that of childhood. Thus, all other considerations
being set aside, mortality tends to vary inversely with
the proportion of the population at the healthy period 5 to 25.
As the replenishment of this group depends upon the conditions
prevailing at the earlier ages, it is to the mortality in childhood
that most weight, from the standpoint of hygiene, must be
attached. In most European countries not much less than half
the annual deaths take place amongst children below five years
of age, upon the total number of whom the incidence falls to the
extent of from 40 to 120 per mille. The greater part of this is
debitable, as just pointed out, to the first year, in which the
mortality, calculated upon the number of births, ranged, in the
decennium 1895–1904, between 70 per mille, in the exceptionally
favourable circumstances of the Australasian States, to nearly
270 in European Russia. It should be remarked, in passing,
that these rates are enormously higher amongst illegitimate
children than amongst those born in wedlock, and that the
proportion of still-born amongst the former is also in excess of
that amongst the latter by some 50%. Infantile mortality is
higher, too, in urban tracts, especially those associated with
manufacturing industries. In Table VII. below, in which the
crude rate alone is dealt with, evidence will be found of the
general decline which has taken place in the mortality, thus
expressed in different countries.
| Country. | (A) Death per 1000 of Total Population. |
(B) Deaths under one year per 1000 Births. |
(C) Decline per cent. | 1Probable Lifetime. | |||||
| 1861–1870 to 1895–1904. |
Fertility- rate. | ||||||||
| 1841–1850. | 1861–1870. | 1895–1904. | 1874–1883. | 1895–1904. | Death- rate. |
Birth- rate. |
1880–1882 to 1900–1902. |
Years. | |
| Sweden | 20·6 | 20·2 | 15·8 | 128 | 98 | 21·7 | 15·0 | 8·2 | 52·3 |
| Norway | 18·2 | 18·0 | 15·1 | 104 | 90 | 10·5 | 3·9 | 3·5 | 52·2 |
| Finland | 23·5 | 32·6 | 18·7 | 164 | 134 | 42·62 | 7·2 | — | 42·8 |
| Denmark | 20·5 | 19·8 | 15·8 | 141 | 127 | 20·6 | 4·2 | 9·3 | 47·8 |
| England | 23·7 | 24·0 | 17·2 | 149 | 150 | 28·3 | 19·4 | 17·8 | 45·9 |
| Scotland | — | 21·8 | 17·3 | 122 | 126 | 20·6 | 14·7 | 12·5 | 46·2 |
| Ireland | — | 16·6 | 18·0 | 96 | 103 | +8·4 | 11·1 | +2·1 | — |
| Holland | 26·2 | 25·4 | 17·0 | 204 | 147 | 33·0 | 9·0 | 9·2 | 27·8 |
| Belgium | 24·4 | 23·8 | 17·8 | 148 | 156 | 25·2 | 9·8 | 19·8 | 45·1 |
| Germany | 26·8 | 26·9 | 20·8 | 2083 | 1983 | 22·6 | 4·6 | 8·4 | 40·7 |
| Austria (W) | 29·8 | 29·1 | 24·0 | 255 | 224 | 17·5 | 4·2 | — | — |
| France | 23·2 | 23·6 | 20·4 | 165 | 153 | 13·5 | 17·5 | 19·8 | 47·4 |
| Italy | — | 30·9 | 22·7 | 208 | 170 | 26·5 | 10·7 | 2·5 | 43·0 |
| Spain | — | 30·6 | 27·8 | — | 182 | 9·1 | 8·0 | — | — |
| Hungary | — | 33·0 | 27·4 | — | 216 | 17·0 | 6·2 | — | 40·1 |
| Galicia | — | 33·5 | 27·8 | — | — | 17·0 | 2·3 | — | — |
| Servia | — | 30·9 | 23·6 | — | 154 | 23·6 | 9·9 | — | — |
| Russia (Eur.) | — | 37·1 | 31·2 | 267 | 268 | 15·9 | 2·2 | — | — |
| N. S. Wales | — | 16·2 | 11·7 | — | 108 | 27·7 | 32·2 | 30·7 | 51·2 |
| Victoria | — | 16·7 | 13·3 | — | 105 | 20·4 | 37·2 | 24·1 | — |
| New Zealand | — | 13·2 | 9·8 | 117 | 79 | 25·7 | 35·1 | 24·5 | 55·4 |
1Mean after lifetime at birth. 2 Finland from 1850–1891, decrease 20·4. 3 Prussia only; Saxony, 284 and 272; Bavaria, 308 257.
The difference in the rates for the various countries must not be taken as a measure of difference in mortality, since, as according to the table, much of it is ascribable to difference in age-constitution. At the same time, where the range is very wide, as between the rates in Scandinavia and Australia, and those in southern and eastern Europe, the variation, to a great extent, cannot be accounted for otherwise than by difference in hygienic conditions, more especially in the light thrown by the figures of infantile mortality in the second part of the table. The variations from period to period in the same country are more instructive. They show that in the 35 years covered the death rate has generally declined by over 20%). The exceptional cases are, first, Ireland and Norway, with their emigrating tendencies; then Spain, where the returns have probably to be discounted for improved registration, and France, where the population is all but stationary. In Finland the death-rate at the earlier period taken for the comparison was abnormally swollen by epidemic disease, and if it be set on one side the decline appears to have been in harmony with that in its Scandinavian neighbours. The decline in mortality has been much greater than that in the crude birth-rate everywhere except in France, Australia, and, of course, Ireland; and it is only in the two former that it has been exceeded by that in the fertility-rate. The standard mortality of each community is deduced from a life-table, representing a “generation” of people assumed to be born at the same moment and followed throughout their hypothetical life, in the light of the distribution by age ascertained
