MORTALITY BY PRINCIPAL CAUSES. Abridged Nomenclature, With Age, Sex, Color and Place of Death of Decedents for Quarter Ending December 31, 1914. VITAL STATISTICS. The number of deaths reported during the year ending 12 M., December 31, 1914, was 74,803, with a death rate of 13.45 per 1,000 of the population against 73,902 deaths and a rate of 13.76 in the year 1913, a decrease of .31 of a point. This is the lowest death rate that the city has ever experienced, and compares favorably with that of the large cities of the world. Comparative Mortality. In order to make a fair comparison, the mortality from certain causes for the year 1914 has been compared with the decennial averages of the years 1904 to 1913, inclusive, corrected to correspond with the increase in population. The comparison might be made in this wise, that if the death rate for the decennium preceding the year 1914 had prevailed during this latter year, there would have been 16,970 more deaths than were reported. This tremendous saving in lives is distributed among the following prominent causes of death with the saving stated in absolute figures: Typhoid fever, 366; malarial fevers, 35; smallpox, 5; measles, 415; scarlet fever, 466; whooping cough, 128; diphtheria and croup, 481; influenza, 149; tuberculosis of the lungs, 1,702; other forms of tuberculosis, 233; cerebro-spinal meningitis, 579; acute bronchitis, 693; chronic bronchitis, 220; lobar pneumonia, 1,775; broncho pneumonia, 1,405; diarrhoeal diseases under five years of age, 3,055; cirrhosis of the liver, 450; puerperal diseases, 216; congenital debility and malformations, 840; accidental deaths, 809; homicides, 3; suicides, 48. There was a saving in the number of lives from apoplexy of 1,062 and of Bright's disease and acute nephritis, 1,291. The mortality from organic heart diseases was increased by 1,492 deaths, but this increase is more than offset by the decreased mortality among those causes which are often associated as contributory causes upon the certificates of death, especially the mortality from apoplexy and Bright's disease and nephritis. There were only two important causes which showed an increased mortality, and they were cancer with an increase of 275 and appendicitis with an increase of 10. Viewed from the point of age grouping, there were 6,032 less deaths of children under one year of age, 1,861 at one year of age and 1,637 at ages two to four years, inclusive; the total saving of lives of children under five years of age was 9,530; between the ages five and sixty-five years the number of lives saved was 6,996, and at sixty-five years and over, 444. The decrease in mortality among males was considerably greater than among the females. BIRTHS AND MARRIAGES. There were 140,647 births reported during the year 1914, an increase of 5,513 over the figures of the previous year. There were 53,052 marriages reported during the year just passed, an increase of 1,784. Stillbirths reported numbered 6,613, a decrease of 18. |