Note 251 — Chapter XXVI · PUBLIC HEALTH AND SANITATION

Measures for the promotion and protection of the public health have a marked effect upon the death rate. Fifty years ago it was not at all uncommon to find, in American cities and towns, an annual death rate of thirty persons per thousand of population. Today this rate has everywhere been cut in two. Even in large centers of population like New York and Chicago the annual death rate, in normal years, is now below fifteen per thousand. This means, of course, that the average duration of life, taking the population as a whole, has been lengthened. The lowered death rate has probably added seven or eight additional years to the average life-span. It is easy to see what an enormous gain this has meant to the productive power of the country.