278 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
tendency, or otherwise, to consumption, scrofula, gout, kidney 
disease, asthma, heart disease, epilepsy, dysentery, and last, 
though not least, intemperate habits. 
The admission of consumptive and intemperate persons causes 
immense loss to life assurance offices. Lives which become 
consumptive after assurance show an average duration of seven 
years eleven months, whilst the average expectation should have 
been thirty years seven months. The following table shows the 
value and expectation of life in temperate and intemperate per- 
sons of certain ages : — 
Age. 
Expectation of 
Intemperate 
Persons. 
Expectation of 
Temperate 
Persons. 
Loss of Life. 
Loss per cent. 
20 
15-8 
44-2 
27-6 
62-4 
30 
13-8 
36-5 
22-7 
62-2 
.40 11'5 
28-8 17-3 
G0-7 
The influence of selected lives is, however, not so great as 
may be imagined where large numbers are concerned. The fol- 
lowing table shows the annual mortality per 1,000 : — 
Ages. 
Amongst assured Lives. 
Amongst the general 
Population. 
1st Year. 
1st and after Years. 
30 
40 
50 
60 
70 
6£ per 1,000 
.8 >2' . ff 
14 * » 
28^ 
v 
8f per 1,000 
10f „ 
16* » 
31 „ 
62* „ 
10* per 1,000 
134 „ 
17 * 
31* » 
67 
Some persons consider even the present mode of selection 
too severe, and that the field of life assurance might be ex- 
tended by more general assurance of persons having a standard 
average of general good health. The correlation of disease is 
a subject deeply interesting in a life assurance point of view. 
Scrofula, consumption, cancer, insanity, gout, diabetes, have, 
well-known hereditary tendencies; and, where one of these 
diseases has manifested itself, another in the category will, very 
probably, appear in the individual, or in the offspring. 
Hereditary taint cannot be lightly passed over, nor can any 
life be considered first-class where it has been well known to exist. 
Instead of rejecting, unconditionally and without explanation, 
a proposer whose life has been considered doubtful, and where 
there is an extra risk, a practice now exists of making surcharges, 
that is, to diminish the expectancy of life, and charge the higher 
