No. 630] 



HUMAN MORTALITY RATES 



L9 



ticians as diseases of the nervous system. For example, 

 it is perfectly certain that most of the deaths recorded as 

 due to " locomotor ataxia" and "softening of the brain" 

 are fundamentally syphilitic in origin. The rate included 

 in Table III of 5.4 for the Eegistration Area of the United 

 States in 1906-10 for deaths due to syphilis is far lower, 

 as any clinician knows, than the number of deaths really 

 attributable to syphilitic infection. These other deaths, 

 due to syphilis, and not reported under that title, are 

 reported under the organ which primarily breaks down 

 and causes death, as, for example, the brain, and will in 

 the present system of classification be included under the 

 nervous system. After careful consideration it has 

 seemed as fair and just as am- thing which could be done 

 to put the residue of deaths specifically reported as due 

 to syphilis under Table III, Primary and Secondary Sex 

 Organs. The rate in any event is so small that whatever 

 shift was made could not sensibly affect the general re- 

 sults to which we shall presently come. 



The question may be asked as to why puerperal septi- 

 cemia (item No. 137) is included here and not with the 

 diseases of the circulatory system and blood on the same 

 reasoning that general septicemia was put there. The 

 cases seem to be essentially different. Puerperal septi- 

 cemia arises fundamentally because of a failure of the 

 reproductive system of the female to meet in a normal 

 way the demands made upon it by the process of repro- 

 duction itself. In line with the general reasoning on 

 which we are working in this classification, it would 

 therefore seem that this cause of death belongs where it 

 has been put here, with the primary and secondary sex 

 organs. The same sort of reasoning applies to the other 

 puerperal causes of death here included. 



Item 125, "Diseases of the urethra, urinary abscesses, 

 etc." is placed with the sex organs rather than with the 

 excretory organs in Table IV, because, with very few ex- 

 ceptions^ the deaths in this item are sequelae of gonorrhea. 

 Urinary abscesses are secondary usually to urethral 



