THE JEWS: RACE AND ENVIRONMENT 



33 



THE JEWS : A STUDY OF EACE AND ENVIRONMENT. IV. 



By Dr. MAURICE FISHBERG 



NEW YORK 



Mortality 

 HHHE bulk of the Jewish population in the orient and eastern 



JL 



Europe lives mostly in the oldest and most congested parts of 



cities amid squalid and unsanitary surroundings, where the mortality 

 rates are, by general experience, known to be excessive. Physically, 

 the eastern European Jews appear to be weak, anemic and decrepit 

 when compared with the christian population, and in addition they are 

 mainly engaged in indoor occupations. These peculiarities would lead 

 one to expect a priori that the mortality rates among them would be 

 much higher than among other people, who live mostly under better 

 hygienic and sanitary conditions, have a large proportion of agricul- 

 turists who live in the open country, and are engaged in outdoor occu- 

 pations, and to all outward appearances are more robust and healthy. 

 It is a remarkable fact, however, that the contrary is true. The figures 

 in the appended table, giving the results of most recent official censuses 



in various countries, show that the rates are much lower among the 

 Jews than among other Europeans. Only in Algeria and Roumania 

 do the rates exceed twenty per 1,000 population, but in all the other 

 mentioned countries the annual rates are less than twenty: In Poland 

 (Cracow and Warsaw) it is between 18 and 19; in European Eussia, 

 Hungary and Austria, 17; in Prussia, 14; in the capitals of Prussia, 

 Bohemia and Hungary, only 13; and in Amsterdam and Bavaria the 

 low rates are almost unprecedented, only 12 per 1,000. A yet lower 



