HEALTH AND BUSINESS 31 



in the deathrate. These departures from the normal are the 

 subject of our study. 



Notice how closely the four curves of Figure 1 agree. All are 

 high in 1872; they sink to a low level about 1878; rise again at 

 the beginning of the eighties; fall about 1885; rise markedly in 

 1891 or 1892; fall once more in 1897; rise a little about 1900; 

 fall in 1902 or 1903 ; and finally rise again about 1907. The only 

 marked discrepancies are 1903 in Chicago and 1904 in New York. 

 The average for all four regions is given at the bottom. Double 

 weight has been given to Chicago because it is the only repre- 

 sentative of the great interior. It is true that the early Chicago 

 statistics are not particularly complete, but this applies only to 

 a short time. Moreover it makes no essential difference, for the 

 main features of all the curves are substantially the same. Even 

 if Chicago were omitted, the average curve would look almost as 

 now except that the fluctuations would be somewhat less extreme. 

 Yet they would be large. Is it not surprising that the difference 

 between the highest and lowest points of the Connecticut curve in 

 Figure 1 is 23 per cent, Massachusetts 24 per cent. New York 

 29 per cent, and Chicago 51 per cent, while in the average curve 

 it amounts to 32 per cent? Clearly some powerful agency causes 

 gimilar_variations in health all over the eastern quarter of the 

 United States. That agency, as we shall see later, appears to be 

 the weather. 



For the present let us pass by the cause of such widespread 

 variations in health and study their effect. Our statistics of 

 deaths represent the northeastern quarter of the United States. 

 This region from New England and New York westward to the 

 Mississippi River includes more than half the people of the 

 United States and a much larger proportion of those who are 

 active in business. Hence when the curve of deaths is inverted 

 it represents the health of the business section of the United 

 States. This health curve appears at the top of Figure 2. Below 

 it comes a curve showing the percentage of persons who passed 



