STATISTICS: R. PEARL 
83 
ON TEE MEAN AGE AT DEATH OF CENTENARIANS* 
By Raymond Pearl 
School of Hygiene and Public Health, Johns Hopkins University 
Communicated, January 28, 1919 
Some years ago I investigated the mean age at death of infants dying at 
very early ages.^ The purpose of that study was to determine with accuracy 
where the deaths under one year should be centered in statistical computa- 
tions involving the computation of moments, where one had to know the center 
TABLE 1 
Age Distribution of Centenarian Deaths in the Registration Area, 1916 
AGE. 
MALES 
FEMALES 
White 
Colored 
White 
Colored 
years 
100 
48 
42 
72 
85 
101 
15 
4 
30 
8 
102 
14 
10 
25 
19 
103 
12 
11 
15 
14 
104 
17 
5 
9 
14 
105 
14 
8 
18 
27 
106 
2 
7 
5 
8 
107 
5 
1 
1 
2 
108 
2 
6 
1 
5 
109 
1 
1 
0 
2 
110 
4 
7 
2 
15 
111 
1 
4 
0 
3 
112 
0 
1 
0 
3 
113 
0 
2 
0 
0 
114 
2 
0 
1 
1 
115 
0 
2 
1 
4 
116 
0 
1 
0 
3 
118 
0 
2 
0 
0 
120 
0 
2 
0 
2 
134 
0 
0 
0. 
1 
Totals 
137 
116 
180 
216 
of gravity of each frequency area over given base units. In an investigation 
which I am now undertaking I have been confronted with the same problem 
at the other end of the life span. In the '^Mortahty Statistics" pubhshed by 
the Bureau of the Census, the deaths occurring at ages of 100 and over are 
lumped in a single class. In calculating the frequency constants of mor- 
* Papers from the Department of Biometry and Vital Statistics, School of Hygiene and 
Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, No. 3. 
