RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT 375 
The death rate of the total population aged 4o and over has in- 
creased in Massachusetts and New Jersey during 30 years (1880- 
IQIO) 5.3 or 21.2 per cent, in 16 cities 8.1 or 25.3 per cent, and in 
10 states from 1900-1910, 89 or 3 percent. The author concludes 
that “while the average length of life has advanced, the extreme 
span of life has not done so—in fact, the indications are that is 
has been shortened.” 
These are disquieting statistics, but we must be careful in 
interpreting them. As Dublin has pointed out, the increasing 
mortality after middle age in this country may be largely ex- 
plained by the increasing proportions of foreigners and their 
immediate descendants, among whom the average expectation 
of life is considerably lower than among the native population of 
native parentage. As an inspection of Glover’s life tables will 
show, the differences in the mortality rates of the native and the 
foreign born become greater with advanced ages, although they 
have become reduced in extreme age. That the decreasing 
longevity in advanced age groups is not a general characteristic 
of modern civilization as indicated by a comparison of the life 
tables of several countries of Europe. Taking the expectation of 
life at sixty years as an index of vitality in old age we find in 
France a slight increase from 1861-65, when it was 13.55 years, 
to 13.58 years in 1877-81, and a further increase in 1898-03 to 
13.81 years. The increased expectation of life at sixty years in 
Germany is shown as follows: 
Expectation of Life in Germany at 60 Years of Age 
Dates 1871-81 1881-90 1891-00 Ig0I-I0 
Expected years of life........ 12.11 12.43 12.82 13.14 
Denmark shows a steadily increasing expectation of life at 
sixty years from 1835-44 to 1900 and Norway shows a gradual 
increase since 1856 and Sweden since 1861. The expectation of 
life at sixty years in England fell somewhat from the middle of 
the 19th century to 1881-90 after which it has increased about 
two years. For the past thirty to forty years people of the old- 
age groups have been living slightly longer on the average also in 
