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Contribution to the Study of the Death-rate of Persons in Asylums

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2018

Arthur Mitchell*
Affiliation:
Lunacy for Scotland

Extract

In the population of Scotch Asylums, there are so few persons below the age of 10 years that, for practical purposes, it may be correctly said there are none. of the general community, on the other hand, 25·6 per cent. are persons below that age. It is clear, therefore, that the death-rate of the population of asylums cannot properly be compared with the death-rate of the general population. To make such a comparison it is necessary to deal only with the deaths occurring among the 74·4 per cent. of the general community who are above the age of 10 years. When this is done, it appears that the mean annual death-rate for the general population is 1·7 per cent. as compared with 8·3 per cent. for the population of asylums. These figures refer to the whole population of asylums, and to the whole of the general population above the age of 10 years; but in order to show the rates at which persons of different ages die in asylums, and the rates at which persons of corresponding ages die in the general community, the following table has been prepared. It is founded on 3,800 deaths occurring during the seven years, 1870–1876, in the Asylums of Scotland, which had a mean population of 6,421 during those years.

Type
Part I.—Original Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1879 

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