Observations on the mortality of the Scottish Widows' Fund and Life Assurance Society, from 1815 to 1845 / by James Begbie.

Date:
1847
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on the mortality of the Scottish Widows' Fund and Life Assurance Society, from 1815 to 1845 / by James Begbie. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    8/22 (page 6)
    November, and only 1 In December. The dry heat of August, and cold damp of November, appear to have been most influential. In regard to the age at which those affections proved most fre- quently fatal, we find that the earliest death took place at 28, and the latest at 79; that only 2 occurred before 30 years of age, 3 between 30 and 40, 15 between 40 and 50, 18 between 50 and 60, 22 between 60 and 70, and 12 between 70 and 80; the period from 63 to 68 giving the largest proportion of fatal issue. The experience of the Society coincides in a remarkable manner with that of Rochoux, whose statistics are generally quoted by medical writers, and who, of 63 examples of apoplexy, found 2 only happened between the ages of 20 and 30, 8 between 30 and 40, 7 between 40 and 50, 10 between 50 and 60, 23 between 60 and 70, 12 between 70 and 80, and 1 between 80 and 90.1 Of the 72 deaths recorded by the Society, 20 took place before 50, and 52 after that age. Of the 63 by Rochoux, 17 occurred before 50, and 46 after that period of life; and in the experience of both, nearly twice as many instances of the disease showed themselves between the ages of 60 and 70, as between 70 and 80. These data appear to confirm the conclusion at which Andral, Rochoux, and others have arrived, namely, that apoplexy becomes I very common after the age of 50, but that it is most frequent be- 1 tween 60 and 70, after which period the disposition to it diminishes, j It must be borne in mind, however, that there are nearly twice as many persons living between 60 and 70 as between 70 and 80, and, therefore, more die of apoplexy in the former decennial period; but, regard being had to the relative number of persons living at different ages in a given population, it will be found that the mortality from apoplexy is not diminished in the latter period. Dr Burrows has prepared some interesting tables on this sub- ject, from which the inference is deducible that the relative fre- quency of apoplexy steadily increases from 20 to 80 years of age, and that the actual number of cases increases in each successive 'j decennial period from 20 to 70 years of age, Avhile the numbers living gradually diminish.2 But while age powerfully predisposes to apoplexy, the true cause of the seizure will be found in those lesions ot the heart and arterial system which prevail at those periods of life, particularly in hypertrophy of the left ventricle, and atheromatous or osseous de- position in the cerebral arteries. During the prevalence of new views regarding the circulation within the head, adopted and supported with much ingenuity by two distinguished writers lately lost to the profession, the intimate connexion of hypertrophied heart with fatal apoplexy was almost 1 Recherchcs sur l’Apoplcxic, p. 212. ,, T. . 3 On Disorders of the Cerebral Circulation, p. 130. Sec also 5th Report of Regis- I War-General.