Most probably the death rate of young children was no higher
in Czernowitz than it was in other European cities of the same size.
In the US in 1900 the life expectancy at birth was 49 years for men
and 51 years for women. In Britain in 1900 life expectancy was about
47 years for men and about 50 years for women.
Since these statistics are for a year. 10 years or more later than
the data sent to us by Berti for Czernowitz, the difference is not so
great.
The low infant mortality rate we have become used to in recent years,
is largely due to clean drinking water and sewage disposal. Both of
which
were not generally common in 1887 - 1892 in the suburbs of Czernowitz,
included in the data for Czernowitz.
The invention of antibiotics further greatly reduced the death rate
of both infants and adults.
In my own family, my paternal grandmother had 3 children during
the period 1900 - 1905 who were either born dead or died in infancy.
My paternal grandfather died at age 62 from Tetanus due to an insect
bite,
which became infected.
On the other hand, one set of my great-grandparents lived to age 82
and 83, the great-grandmother, despite having both diabetes
and gallbladder problems.
Mimi
On Nov 18, 2012, at 7:51 AM, Berti Glaubach wrote:
> You probably all know about Daniel's project to digitize birth,
> marriage and death data available only on microfilms and therefore
> being difficult if not impossible to find when searching for relatives
> or friends.
>
> I have recently registered on excel for Daniel data on deaths for the
> years 1887 to 1892 (those whose family names commence with an S) and
> was (may be unjustifiably) surprised by the high rate of infant
> mortality and low average life expectancy of the Jewish population in
> those years.
>
> Out of 159 death records 76 were of children who died at age up to and
> including 2 years old, that is nearly 48%. Of the 83 persons of age 3
> and up, half died less than at age 38 (median), their weighted average
> being 42.6 years.
>
> Do not know how this compares with data from other places or
> populations at that time, nor if the number considered is
> statistically sufficient for drawing any conclusion. But in the
> future, the project once finished will surely provide, as secondary
> gain, an interesting inside into the conditions our grand (or grand
> grand) parents lived and died.
>
> Berti.
>
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Received on 2012-11-18 14:01:48
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