The causes of death among the assured in the Scottish Widow's Fund and Life Assurance Society from 1874 to 1894 inclusive / [Claud Muirhead].

Muirhead, Claud.

Date:: 1902

Credit: The causes of death among the assured in the Scottish Widow's Fund and Life Assurance Society from 1874 to 1894 inclusive / [Claud Muirhead]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$liave died of Cold, Catarrli, Laryngitis, Water in tlie Lrain, Cliest Disease, Over-study, llannoptysis. Lingering Illness, Jlip Disease, Tabes Mesenterica, etc., where the subjects were under 40 years of age, lor such terms are often used as euphemisms for I’hthisis. The same remark ap])lies to the term ('hildbirth, which in former years was often accepted as a cause of death, without further enquiiy, wlien it ought more correctly to have been recorded as riithisis. There were only lifteen such cases out of the whole group of five hundred and twenty-four claims, a fact which speaks well for the intelli- gence and alertness of the IMedical Examiners of the Society. These I divided, treating seven of them as if they were cases of true I’hthisis; and including the other eight among those who gave evidence of what may be termed a suspicious family history of I’hthisis. I also included in this group persons more advanced in life who were reported to have died of Tulmonar}' Disease, .\sthma, 15reak-up, Chronic Pneumonia, Debility, etc. These are they whom I term “ Possibly Consumptive. 11 will be observed that I have been most liberal and comprehensive in the terms which I have accepted as synonyms for Phthisis. Possibly I have exceeded the just limit. AVhen I liad collected and examined the data I found that out of five hundred and twenty-four cases of death by Phthisis only one hundred and twenty, or 22‘89 per cent, presented in their family history distinct evidence of direct phthisical taint; and other sixty-two, or an additional 11’8 3 per cent, exhibited a suspicious family history of Phthisis. That is to say, that, at the very outside, only 34‘72 per cent of these five hundred and twenty-four members who died of Consumption exhibited, in their family history, any evidence of family pre- disposition to the disease. Now, this is a very interesting and important fact, viz. that certainly not more than 35 per cent of the Consumptives, that is, about one in three, exhibited any family predisposition to Phthisis. This percentage accords pretty closely with the published statistics of Dr. AVilliams and Dr. Cotton, who give as the result of their investigation into this point 34 per cent and 3G per cent respectively; and the figures, so far as they go, bear out what I have already stated, that too gi’eat weight has hitherto been attached to the mere fact that members of Proposers’ families had succumbed to Phthisis. Possibly, also, too little importance has been given to the age the Proposer had attained before the death of the parent. For it is reasonable to suppose that if the parent dies of Phthisis one year after the birth of the child, the latter is much more likely to have inherited a vulnerable constitution than if he had attained the age of say 25 or 30 before the parent died of the disease. I regret that this is a point which, owing to delective data, I am quite unable to elaborate. At the same time, it is hardly fair to assume that the remaining three hundred and forty-two who died of Consumption had no immediate relative who died of the disease. For it is to be observed that 46 per cent of our Con- sumptives entered the Society below the age of 30, and 88 per cent of them below the age of 40, so that when they joined the Society their family histories were not completed, and inevitably a certain proportion of their immediate families would die of Phthisis.$