Low Rates

"Unless there is a marked reversal of trend," said Dr. Thomas Parran, head of the U. S. Public Health Service last week, "the mortality rate from all causes of death during the current year will be the lowest on record, with the possible exception of 1933." During the first six months of 1938, he added, the death rate was 10.8 per 1,000 a figure surpassed only by the 10.7 rate for the entire year of 1933. Some 60% of the total 1938 decline was due to the remarkably small death toll of pneumonia and influenza last winter. Other factors pulling down the 1938 death rate: 1) low maternal mortality, which now amounts to 4.4 per 1,000 live births, 15% less than 1937; 2) lower incidence of tuberculosis, which shows signs of declining for the first time to less than five deaths per 10,000; 3) fewer auto accidents, which show a 20% mortality decline over 1937.

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