ABOUNDING VITALITY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18653, 7 September 1922, Page 6

ABOUNDING VITALITY.

The report, of the Registrar-general for England! and Wales dealing with the year 1920, issued in July last and for various reasons belated, has attracted more than ordinary attention by reason of the fact that it reveals, aa one journal has put it, that the nation from the cradle to the grave was occupied in that year in surpassing every past achievement in births, deaths, and marriages. The marriage rate was the highest yet recorded; the number of births was the largest chronicled in any year since civil registration was instituted ; the death raie was the lowest on record and comprehended a rate of infant mortality lower than ever before. The natural increase of population, representing the excess of births over deaths, was just upon half a million. This figure had never previously been reached. Nor is that all. The death rate from tuberculosis was lower than in any previous year. Thus, the statistical light thrown upon post-war life in England and Wales has disclosed favourable records almost all along the line. It is true that a new record was created in 1920 in such a matter as divorce,'and that this is not altogether a cause for gratification, the number being nearly double that, for 1919 and! nearly treble that for any earlier year. . The Registrar-general’s report provides interesting matter from various points of view. Study of the mortality tables reveals the fact, itself remarkable in view of the' extent, to which selected lives were sacrificed during the war and of the number surviving with impaired health, that the ratio of deaths of men between the ages of fifteen and forty-five has returned to its normal level. In this connection the Registrar-general observes: “If this experience is confirmed in future years we must probably draw from it the comfortable conclusion that the health of war veterans, so far as their mortality is an index to it, has not, on average, been deteriorated by their service.” The improvement in health denoted! by statistics seems to be largely confined to the second half of life, both for men and women, and “old age” as a cause of death would appear to be rapidly declining in vogue. It is curious to observe that the conclusion has been drawn from the birth-rate figures that they confirm the old belief that Nature succeeds in restoring the balance between males and females which war tends to destroy. As an index to national vitality the records for the year have naturally been considered most encouraging. The Times makes the warranted deduction: “This is scarcely the performance of a decadent people. On the contrary it would seem that, so far as our minds and bodies are concerned, we have taken the war ‘in our stride.’ . . . It may not perhaps be quite legitimate to compare this 'abounding vitality with the slower recovery of economic health. Yet such a comparison can scarcely be avoided. The human organism is still by far the most resilient structure in the world. It bears shocks and reacts to them in a manner which its own creations are quite incapable of emulating. On the other hand we are entitled to believe that men and women possessed of so high a degree of fitness will not fail as the architects of the future. They will in process of time restore to their early strengths the economic and social systems .on which their happiness depends. To doubt this would be, in view of these ( figures, to doubt that courage and energy are still possessed of their ancient fertility of achievement.”