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Febmuiry 5, 18(19.] -^ ' fC:hase. 



PHILADELPHIA LIFE TABLES. 

 By Pliny Earle Chase. 



More than forty years ago Dr. Gouveriieur Emerson, in the American 

 Journal of tlie Medical Sciences, began his discussion of the vital statis- 

 tics of Philadelphia.* His connection with the Board of Health gave 

 him ready access to the original returns, and after subjecting them to a 

 rigid scrutiny, he became satisfied that the sanitary condition of the city 

 was remarkably good. 



Doctors W. S. W. Ruschenberger, "Wilson Jewell, -James IST. Corse and 

 "W. Lehman Wells, on behalf of the Committee on Epidemics and Me- 

 teorology, of the Philadelphia College of Physicians, subsequently pub- 

 lished some interesting local nozological tables and conclusions. I can- 

 not find that any other noteworthy use has been made of a valuable 

 mortuary record, which has been kept with great care, and without inter- 

 ruption, from the commencement of the year 1807 until the present 

 time.f 



At the request of the Provident Life and Trust Company of Philadel- 

 phia, I have recently computed two comparative life tables, from the 



* Among the results developed by Dr. Emerson's investigations connected with the movement 

 of population and vital statistics of Philadelphia, embracing a period of about thirty years from 

 the year 1807, when the first official Bill of Mortality was issued, are the following: 



1. Great healthfulness of the city proper, in which the annual proportion of deaths to the popula- 

 tion was only 1 in 56 (See Am. Med. Journal for Nov. 1827). 



2. Excessive mortality in the colored population (Ibid). 



3. Improved condition of colored population as indicated by reduction of mortality. 



i. Excessive mortality of children in the warm months, and demonstration of the fact that the 

 deleterious operations of heat are almost entirely confined to the first months of life, the influence 

 of the seasons upon infantile mortality being scarcely perceptible after the first year of life has 

 passed. 



5. The excessive mortality of male over that of female children in the first stages of infancy, 

 and demonstration that this is not owing, as commonly supposed— to greater exposure of male 

 children to accidents, but to diseases and physiological causes peculiar to each sex (Am. Jour, of 

 Med. Sciences, 1827 to 1831). 



7. Practical conclusions drawn from results last mentioned (Ibid). 



8. Seasons when most births take place (Ibid. Nov., 1845). 



9. Influence exerted through epidemic cholera and other depressing agencies, tending to 

 reduce.the preponderance of male births (Same Journal for July, 1848, p. 78;. 



t "From authority vested in the Board of Health, this municipal power makes it obligatory upon 

 physicians to give certificates designating the name, age, and sex of all who die under their care, 

 and sextons are bound by still heavier penalties not to permit the Interment of any dead body 

 until such certificate is obtained, which he returns to the Health Office on the last day of every 

 week, for publication" (Emerson; op. cit., vol. I, p. 1)7 ). 



A. P. S. — VOL. XI — C 



