21,3 Abriol: Death Rates and Economic Factors 313 
owing to the general social condition obtaining in the Phil- 
ippine population, the usual relations respecting familial infec- 
tion are somewhat upset. Taxes, as a factor, show no associa- 
tion. The correlation coefficient with personal property and real 
estate is shown in Table 2 as being slightly more than four 
times the probable error. The actual figures, carried to four 
decimal places, however, are +0.3708 with a probable error 
of +0.0932, the former being slightly less than four times the 
latter. The coefficient, therefore, does not certainly indicate 
any association of death rates with real estate. 
Malaria, smallpox, leprosy, and beriberi.—None of the co- 
efficients for these diseases has any significance. 
DISCUSSION 
The results presented must be regarded as entirely prelimi- 
nary to more-detailed statistical analysis. There is involved an 
element of spurious arithmetical correlation due to the fact 
that the data correlated are rates having the same denominator 
for both deaths and economic and social variables. However, 
it is believed that the preliminary gross results here presented 
have considerable suggestive value. Yule(12) has argued that 
in such death-rate correlations the gross coefficients (which in- 
clude the so-called spurious element) have real significance be- 
cause they represent what is really the actuality. Green- 
wood’s(1) study of death-rate correlations of cancer and diabetes 
appears to bear out this contention. Pending further analysis 
by the methods of partial correlation, to eliminate wholly the 
spurious element, the present conclusions should be accepted 
with caution and reservation. 
In the consideration of the various correlations it is deemed 
necessary to note just what may be the effects of civilization 
upon a people like the Filipinos, presenting as they do a popula- 
tion of heterogeneous character. Down through history, the 
acquisition of civilization by the so-called primitive peoples has 
been followed by a general weakening of their natural powers. 
Attention is drawn to its effects upon the American Indians, 
for instance. Since they, as nations, possessed no acquired 
specific immunity against the diseases that follow closely in the 
path of civilization, they easily succumbed to them. Another 
effect, closely allied, is the influence upon the size of the families. 
It is not the general trend of sociological development that the 
less-enlightened peoples have larger families than those endowed 
with the benefits of culture and civilization ? 
188431——6 
