The salient points in connection with Table 34 giving the mortality from consumption during the past thirty-eight years and the ratios in quinquennial periods have been pointed out in the discussions of Table 27 (see most prominent causes of death).

TABLE 34. Mortalit jom Pulmonary Consumption - Thirty-eight Years, 1873 1910.

TABLE 35.— Mortality from Pulmonary Consumption, by Counties, 1909 and 1910.

Pneumonia. - Pneumonia, under which term is included bronchopneumonia, claimed 4,781 deaths during the year 1910. This was an increase of 624 over the figures for 1909, which figures were larger by 113 than those for 1908. It will be seen that this most widely known of the infectious diseases is on the increase. Indeed, the number of deaths from this cause exceeds the number from pulmonary tuberculosis by 278. Broncho-pneumonia is a disease of the extremes of life, but the average ages of deaths from lobar pneumonia approximates thirty-six to thirty-eight years.

Table 36 shows definitely the number of deaths by months and quarters and the percentages of deaths from pneumonia in the quarters.

TABLE 36. Mortality from Pneumonia, by Months and Quarters, 1910.

Months,.

Quarters,
Percentages,

611 539 713 614 405 197 142 126 216 265 393 560

The disease is widespread, has a higher death-rate in populations of greater density, has failed to show any appreciable diminution in death-rate under the varying treatments of years, and remains withal the most constant and most baffling of the infectious diseases which are endemic in our midst. The denser the population, the greater the death-rate from pneumonia.

Table 37 records the deaths from alcoholism, 1873-1910. The figures are taken from the medical examiners' report and vary so little that comment is unnecessary.

Table 38 shows the mortality from cancer for the past thirty-six years. There were 3,028 deaths in the year 1910, as against 2,871 in the year 1909, showing an increase of deaths in the year 1910 of 157. It also shows the highest quinquennial death-rate per 10,000 of population ever shown, namely, 9 per cent.

While more accurate diagnosis may have something to do with the increase in the death-rate from cancer, the figures certainly justify the large effort made in the medical world for the discovery of the cause of this disease.

Death-rates per

100,000 Living.

TABLE 38. Mortality from Cancer, for Thirty-six Years, 1875-1910.

One of the most interesting studies in mortality is presented in Table 39. This presents the statistics in re deaths from Bright's disease, etc., over a period of sixty years. Of the total deaths from these causes (3,060) 2,183 are reported to have been from acute nephritis. Usually this latter is an infectious condition and should be properly so classified. This would leave 877 deaths chargeable to the chronic or degenerative type of kidney diseases. Better diagnosis and the exactions of registrars have succeeded in reducing the reported number of deaths from dropsy to 1.

Taking the table as presented we find at once that we are dealing with maximal figures. In sixty years there has been a steady and consistent absolute increase in the number of deaths from diseases of the kidneys, and a corresponding increase in the ratios to total mortality per 1,000. The condition is shared by Massachusetts in common with the country as a whole.