DEATH RATE OF DOCTORS

Evening Star, Issue 19327, 13 August 1926, Page 10

DEATH RATE OF DOCTORS

MOSTLY FROM HEART DISEASE AYhafc is the most frequent cause of death among doctors—who command all the resources of medical science? Interesting figures published by the Journal of the American Medical Association ’ disclose that heart disease carries off the greatest number in the United States. Two thousand five hundred and thirty-two doctors, out of a total of approximately 147,0111, died in that country last year, states a medical correspondent of the ‘ Daily Express,’ a dcatli rate of 17.22 per 1,000, as compared with 11.9 for the general population.

Heart disease easily headed the list among the doctors, no fewer than 559 dying from some form of heart trouble. Failure of the heart occurs frequently in persons who have stored up useless fatty tissues, and the complete figures indicate that these doctors generally lived well and inclined to portliness. Night calls, fwith the (repeated shocks of the telephone and front door bell alarms, undoubtedly contributed to the heavy toll. Pneumonia, as might bo expected in the case of doctors out in all weathers and at all hours, came second on the list, claiming 222 deaths. No fewer than fifty-nine of the doctors took their own lives, forty were in motor car accidents, seven were drowned, three were murdered, u \,o fell victims to the use of X-rays, and one was killed in an aeroplane crash. The only centenarian last year died at the ripe age of 107. The average age at death was sixty-firc. It is interesting to note that, in spite of the hazardous nature of their occupation, the span of the doctor’s years seems to be lengthening. Statistics show that 489 died between the ages of seventy and eighty last year, as compared with only 103 in 1905. Sixty-two died under the age of thirty in 1905, as compared with twenty-one last year.