Page:Graphic methods for presenting facts (1914).djvu/192

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compared for the two years under consideration. Notice that in the later year, 1900, deaths from pneumonia between the ages of ten and sixty years were much less frequent, while deaths after the age of sixty were more frequent. There was also an increase in the number of deaths at ages less than four. Certainly the facts relating to deaths from pneumonia for the two years are much more clearly brought out in Fig. 147 than in Fig. 146.

United States Statistical Atlas, 1900 Census

Fig. 146. Comparative Proportion of Deaths at Different Ages from Pneumonia per 1,000 Deaths from Pneumonia in the Registration Area of the United States, 1890 and 1900


The right-and-left arrangement of this chart makes comparison for the two different years almost impossible. Contrast this illustration with Fig. 147


There are some peculiarities in Fig. 147 which should be pointed out. The Government figures are given by one-year intervals up to the age of five, and then on five-year intervals to ninety-five. Fig. 147 really should have been made so as to indicate a change in the horizontal scale at five years. If the chart had been made the full width of the page it would have been possible to get room enough to show the figures for single years at ages under five by using a space only one-fifth of the horizontal distance used for the five-year intervals. The large number of deaths at ages five to nine inclusive is very striking on the curve. Possibly the large death rate from five to nine may be due to the lessening of parental care at an age when exposure becomes more frequent. By ten years of age, the children have learned better how to take care of themselves and the number of deaths from pneumonia comes down to about the lowest point. Though the foregoing explanation of the large number of deaths from five to nine years may be correct, it is probable that the figures are more or less in error, due to the tendency to state ages in numbers