On the causes of death in the Scottish Widows' Fund Life Assurance Society from January 1853 to January 1860 / by James Begbie.

  • Begbie, James Warburton, 1826-1876.
Date:
1860
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the causes of death in the Scottish Widows' Fund Life Assurance Society from January 1853 to January 1860 / by James Begbie. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    in shortening the duration of life, chiefly through the effects they pro- duce directly or indirectly on the heart and vascular system. To this subject attention has been directed in former reports. X. Diseases of the Integumentary System. In last investigation, two cases of Carbuncle supplied the only entry under this head; in the present, there is no death to report. XI. Under the name of Violent Death there are twenty-nine emerged risks, or 3 per cent, of the total mortality. Through suicide, or drowning, or accidental injury, these twenty-nine, whose united expectation on acceptance was 885-89 years, survived only 267'09 years; that is, each on an average lived 9'21 years, in place of 30 55 yearSj their average expectation term. The accidents of travelling account for ten deaths : six persons were killed by being thrown from gigs ; one by fall from an omnibus ; one by being thrown from his horse ; one perished in the wreck of a steamer; and one by the upsetting of a boat. Two persons were drowned while bathing ; two were killed by falling from a height; one was accidentally shot, and another accidentally shot himself; one was murdered by poachers ; and one perished in the ruins of the great fire at Newcastle. One was killed by the bursting of a steam- engine ; one was mortally wounded by steam-engine machinery ; one was crushed to death at a railway station; and another by accidental injury not explained. One was murdered by a knife-wound in the neck; two perished by self-inflicted gunshot wounds; two by hanging, and two by drowning themselves. These distressing casualties, numerous as they are, bear a considerably smaller proportion to the general mortality than is exhibited in the experience of similar institutions. XII. Lastly, as some compensation for the loss inflicted by these early deaths, we record an equal number of emerged risks under the head of Old Age and Natural Decay,—of twenty-nine whose conjunct expectation on acceptance was 538'84 years, but who outlived that term till their united survivancy amounted to 708 85 years,—each on an average thus attaining 24-44 years in place of 18 58 years, their average expectation of life. Of these old age risks, two emerged before the 70th year ; sixteen between 70th and 80th years ; and