Rural Hygiene. Henry N. Ogden
one third in the forty years ending with 1900, as shown by the following table:—
| 1900 | 1860 | |||||
| County | Total White Population | Under 10 Years | Per Cent | Total White Population | Under 10 Years | Per Cent |
| Otsego | 48,793 | 7,121 | 14.5 | 49,950 | 10,988 | 22.0 |
| Putnam | 13,669 | 2,332 | 16.9 | 13,819 | 3,333 | 24.1 |
| Total | 62,462 | 9,453 | 15.0 | 63,769 | 14,321 | 22.5 |
This shows that while in 1860, when the total population was about 64,000, the number of children was about 14,000 or 22.5 per cent, in 1900, when the total population was 62,462 or nearly the same, the number of children was only 9453, or a reduction in numbers of nearly 5000 children. In many of the small cities of New York State, the fact that there is a constantly decreasing number of children in the community is well recognized, the greater proportion of the population being past middle life. The death-rate, therefore, is lower, from this very fact.
Death-rates of children.
That the general death-rate is directly affected by the number of children living in a community is shown by the following table:—
Table V. Showing Deaths from all Causes in the United States for the Years 1901–1905, at Various Age Periods
| Age | No. at Each Age | Per Cent of Total Population |
| Aggregate | 529,630 | —— |
| Under 1 year | 100,268 | 18.93 |
| Under 5 years | 143,684 | 27.13 |
| 5–9 years | 13,679 | 2.58 |
| 10–19 years | 23,234 | 4.38 |
| 20–29 years | 46,685 | 8.81 |
| 30–39 years | 49,501 | 9.34 |
| 40–49 years | 48,811 | 9.21 |
| 50–59 years | 51,787 | 9.77 |
| 60–69 years | 59,856 | 11.31 |
| 70–79 years | 56,544 | 10.68 |
| 80–89 years | 29,408 | 5.55 |
| 90 and over | 6,441 | 1.21 |
This table shows two things: first, that children have a hard time reaching five years, as nearly one third of all the children born in any year die under five years, and second, that from five to twenty years is the healthiest—that is, safest—time of a person's life, since after twenty the constitutional diseases make themselves felt so that death becomes almost uniformly distributed from twenty to eighty. It is plain, then, that in any community a change in the relative proportion of children born in any year would change the death-rate, since with a smaller number of infants there could not be so many to die.
No statistics are available to determine the number of small children in the country as compared with that in the city, but it is probable that they are in excess in the latter, since the highest birth-rates are found in the congested districts of cities where foreigners congregate. If this is so, it will account for and justify a higher rate of death in the city because of the larger number of children, as has been explained above, and the lower rate in the country may be due, not to better sanitary surroundings, but solely to fewer children.
According to statistics, the death-rate of children is almost 50 per cent higher in cities than in rural districts, and it is a general impression that most deaths in the country are from old age. English statistics show, however, and those of the United States would probably show the same thing, that while a baby born in the city is more likely to die before its first birthday than a baby born in the country, they have equal chances to finish a month of life and that the city child has better chances to live out the first week. The advantages of the country, therefore, do not begin to operate until after the first month of the baby's life, and there is a decidedly greater chance of the child's living in the city the first week on account, probably, of better and quicker medical attendance.
Typhoid fever and the death-rate.
Turning now to special diseases and comparing the number of deaths caused by special diseases in the country and in the city, it is to be noted, first of all, that a greater difference exists in the case of certain special diseases in the country and in the city than was found in the general death-rate. In the case of typhoid fever, basing the comparison on the statistics of the Census Office of the United States, we find, first, that, at present, the difference in the death-rates from typhoid fever in cities and in rural districts is very small. It is also to be seen (from the following table) that in both city and in rural districts, the rate is steadily decreasing, although in neither has the rate yet fallen to what would, in other countries, be considered a reasonable and proper death-rate. The first line of the table is the actual death-rate from typhoid fever per 100,000 population, based on the total population resident in all the United States where vital statistics are kept; the second line gives the same data for cities not included in registration states;