THE INCREASING MORTALITY 



377 



placed before the public in concise and popular form lies buried in our 

 official records and in the files of our statisticians and scientists who 

 have analyzed them for their own or scientific use. 



Owing to the incompleteness of mortality statistics, especially in 

 former years, it is frequently necessary in making comparisons to insert 

 personal estimates to fill gaps. The rates in such instances are, there- 

 fore, deduced partly from statistics and partly from personal judgment. 



The statistics used in arriving at the comparisons given below were, 

 however, sufficiently complete to render unnecessary the interpolation 

 of estimates to fill omissions, with one unimportant exception. 1 The 

 rates deduced are the direct product of existing official reports, which 

 are accessible to any one desiring to look them up. 



The purpose of submitting these ratios is not primarily to fix a 

 specific rate of increase, but to indicate the trend of mortality in 

 middle life and old age in the area named. Those interested in the 

 subject will judge the measure of the actual increase by the value they 

 may place upon the original data from which these rates are extracted. 



Degenerative Diseases 



That the ratio of deaths from the more important degenerative 

 affections has increased sharply in recent years is so generally known 

 that it is needless to present in this brief paper the indicated advance 



Degenerative Diseases 



Massachusetts 1880-1909? Increase in the Death Bate 



(per 10,000 Population) by Age Periods 



in the rate for each disease separately. They are, therefore, grouped 

 by age divisions. By this method the disturbing effect on the rates of 



1 In the absence of the official figures of the age divisions of the population 

 for 1910, the ratios of distribution of 1900 were used. Inasmuch as the change 

 in the percentage of living at the different age periods is very slight in one 

 decade, the actual ratios for 1910 will make no appreciable change in the mor- 

 tality rates here given. 



3 Massachusetts State Eegistration Reports. 



VOL. LXXXII. — 26 



