The assurance of diseased and doubtful lives on a new principle, more advantageous and equitable to policy-holders than the system hitherto adopted / by Morrice A. Black ; with observations on the characteristics of assurable and non-assurable lives, by A.P. Stewart.

  • Black, Morrice A.
Date:
1862
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The assurance of diseased and doubtful lives on a new principle, more advantageous and equitable to policy-holders than the system hitherto adopted / by Morrice A. Black ; with observations on the characteristics of assurable and non-assurable lives, by A.P. Stewart. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    there are various circumstances -which may cast a shade of doubt, more or less deep, even on -a life at first sight so eligible. We must enquire— - 1.—What is his family history? If his parents, though each of a long-lived race, have died early, already a suspicion of some family taint dawns upon one. If, in addition, we find that onej two, three, the majority, perhaps almost all of his brothers and sisters have died, suspicion strengthens into certainty. If, still further, it .appears that these died, not in infancyj but at various ages between 10 and 35, but especially between 15 and 30, we may almost conclude, without further enquiry, that the disease which has wrought such havoc is tubercular consumption. In estimating the bearing of such facts in family history on the pro- babilities of life, we may inflict wrong on a proposer by viewing too seriously the occurrence of a single case of consumption in a family of average size. This has been well pointed Out by Dr. Brinton in his admirable lecture “ On the Medical Selection of Lives for Assurance.”* But when two, three, or more cases have ended fatally in a family of seven, eight, or ten, the survivors riot having attained the age of 35, the probability is that in some of these the seeds of the disease exist, and may be quickened into activity by apparently trifling exciting causes. The same remarks apply to other diseases repitted “hereditary,”' such as scrofula, gout and rheumatism, cancer, insanity, and diseased of the brain and nervous system—with this important difference, however, that whereas tubercular disease occurs comparatively seldom after 35, advancing years confer no immunity from most of the other diseases riamed; on the contrary, it is after 40 that gout, cancer, and para-' lysis, most commonly occur. Now here is an extensive group of circumstances, which, without -tay present indication of disease in the life under examination, at once places it in the category of doubtful or suspected lives,' and the presumption against its eligi-' bility varies, according to the prevalence of the complaint among blood relations, from next to nothing to an almost absolute bar. The extra risk will be covered in one case by the addition of two or three years; in another, the addition of twenty or thirty years will hardly tempt a prudent office tb incur it. We need scarcely add that the frequent occurrence of slight coldS in a member of a consumptive farriily; of pains in the limbs and joints in a person with a gouty or rheumatic' predisposition; of great and sudden iiuc- ! * Tlrird pp. 2;>, 20. It was Dr. .Bqgpie, of Edinlau'gh, who first recom- mended tho rejpetinn of lives hclongiiig to fnniilies in which more thivn one case of c'tinsnmption had occurred—a principle which is also strongly advocated by Dr. ^ Wiristison. ■ V i