Medical statistics of life assurance : being an inquiry into the causes of death among the members of the Scottish Amicable Life Assurance Society, from 1826 till 1860 : and a comparative analysis of the diseases which have proved fatal among the assured in several societies, and among the general population of England, with remarks on the medical selection of lives for assurance / by J.G. Fleming.

  • Fleming, John Gibson, 1809-1879.
Date:
1862
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical statistics of life assurance : being an inquiry into the causes of death among the members of the Scottish Amicable Life Assurance Society, from 1826 till 1860 : and a comparative analysis of the diseases which have proved fatal among the assured in several societies, and among the general population of England, with remarks on the medical selection of lives for assurance / by J.G. Fleming. 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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    Class XV.—GRADUAL DECAY AND SENILE DEBILITY. Number of Deaths from Gradual Decay, etc. Per Centage of Deaths from Gradual Decay, etc. On Lives at Eisk. On Deaths from all Causes. Eng- land. Gotha. Scot. Amic. Eng- land. Gotha. Scot. Amic. Eng- land. Gotha. Scot. Amic. Wid. Fund. Stan- dard. North. Brit. Lond. Eguit. 3324 82 16 •029 •061 •028 1-87 3-32 2-06 2-42 3-23 3-76 13-82 From the above, it appears that the deaths in the general population and in the Scottish Amicable, on the lives at risk in this Class, were in the same proportion—in the Gotha they were greatly higher. Among the assured (excluding the London Equitable, for reasons to be afterwards given) the deaths were 245 out of 8148, or 3'00 per cent against 1'87 in England; including the London Equitable, the rate was 6'63 against 1*87. When estimated by the second division of the Table, the results, in all the Assurance Societies except the Equitable, bear a fair equality to each other. The large proportion of deaths from this Class in the London Equitable is, at first sight, rather startling, but on refiection admits of exjDlanation. In the first place, the nomenclature that was adopted by that Society is more general, and altogether more imperfect than that of the others, so that many deaths included by it under 'Age,” and other vague terms, would, by the more modern institutions, have been attributed to some specific disease. Again, the large rate of mortality from old age and debility, in the Lon- don Equitable, is quite what might be looked for, when we consider that the Society had existed for 70 years before the date of the report, so that the members had had tune to grow old. It is to be hoped that the younger institutions will be able to show as large a proportion of deaths at advanced ages, when they aiTive at the same maturity, but classified more in accor- dance with the improvements of science which have taken place of recent years. The London Equitable had 566 deaths out of