VITAL STATISTICS OF THE JEWS.

95 women are remarkably good mothers. It appears that in the upon the three quinquennial periods ending respectively in 189Q, 1895, be followed. As a result the and 1900, while the metropolitan rate of infant mortality course which should committee, at a meeting on June 2nd, requested the (deaths under one year to 1000 births) successively increased chairman of council to ascertain what prospect there from 153 to 156 and 161. the rate in the borough of Stepney would be of the Privy Council advising the Crown to declined from 170 to 168 and 165. These figures do not grant a charter to the Association. Mr. Andrew Clark was show a low rate of infant mortality in Stepney, but they able to report to a meeting of the committee on June 19th prove that the steady and remarkable recent aggregat’on of that as the result of inquiries at the Privy Council Office he Jewish aliens in that borough has been accompanied by a had gathered the impression that the Association had a decline of infant mortality concurrently with a general good prospect of obtaining a Royal Charter. The com- increase in the mortality of infants in the whole of the metromittee presented a report embodying the above facts to the politan area. The paper shows sound reason for believing council at its meeting on July 5th and the council then that the Jewish birth-rate, at any rate in East London, is determined to report to the representative meeting that the considerably higher than the non-Jewish birth-rate and information obtained as a result of inquiries as to the that it was equal to 45 per 1000 in 1903. It is further probability of the Association being granted a Royal Charter asserted that this high birth-rate is not only due to the was so encouraging that it recommends the meeting to make large proportion of Jewish women who are married but also to to the greater fertility of Jewish wives. Whether Mr. an application to the Privy Council praying His Majesty Rosenbaum was well advised to use his hypothetical figures grant a Royal Charter. for the construction of a life table is open to some doubt, but the resulting table shows a higher expectation of life at VITAL STATISTICS OF THE JEWS. all ages and for both sexes than is shown by life tables based THE desire has from time to time ,been expressed for trust. upon the mortality of the general population of England worthy vital statistics of the Jews, partly perhaps on account and Wales. This is attributed not only to the more careful of the absence in this country of any satisfactory basis for treatment of infants and children by Jewish mothers but their calculation. No religious census has ever been taken also to the generally temperate habits of the Jewish populain the United Kingdom ; neither does the birth- or death-rate tion. The combined result of the high birth rate and the afford any information as to the religious persuasion of low death-rate among the Jews is an abnormally high rate deceased persons or of the panents of children born. These of natural increase, by excess of births over deaths: Mr. facts, however, do ,not detract from, but rather add to, the Rosenbaum admits that his conclusions have been mainly interest of a paper read before the Royal Statistical Society based upon the Jewish population of East London, which has an extremely abnormal age constitution, due to the on June 27 tb, entitled "A Contribution to the Study of the Vital and other Statistics of the Jews in the United alien immigration, including very few children or Kingdom," by Mr. S. Rosenbaum. While it is difficult to elderly persons, and it seems open to doubt whether the accept as entirely .satisfactory all the conclusions arrived effect of this exceptional age constitution has ben fully at by the writer of the paper, based upon a number allowed for in estimating the matriage-, birth-, and deathof somewhat hypothetical assumptions and estimates, he rates of the population. The paper is, however, full of has brought to his task a sound knowledge of statistical interest and many of the conclusions appear to be, in the method and of the fallacies that beset so much statistical main, well founded. work. The paper, therefore, deserves the careful attention of those who are interested in the subject. A CASE OF ABSCESS OF THE SPLEEN AFTER TYPHOID FEVER. The total Jewish is of the United

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ABSCESS of the spleen after typhoid fever is a very rare estimated at about 240,000, as the mean of two methods of estimation, based upon the recorded numbers of marriages complication and very few cases are on record. A case of solemnised in accordance with the usages of the Jews. exceptional interest is recorded by Dr. Federmann of Berlin Bearing in mind that a considerable, but unknown, propor- in the Deutsche Medicinische Wochenschrift, No. 15, 1905, in tion of Jews are admittedly married according to the rites which this condition occurred and was cured by operation. of the Established Church, or are married in Nonconformist The patient was a labourer, 23 years of age, who was registered buildings or by a superintendent registrar without admitted into the Moabit Hospital for an attack of typhoid religious service, this estimation of the Jewish population fever of moderate severity. On the eleventh day after the in the United Kingdom is probably below the true number. decline of the fever the patient developed a further febrile Such under-estimate, however, would not affect some of the attack with leucocytosis. An exploratory puncture showed the other conclusions arrived at by Mr. Rosenbaum. It appears presence of turbid purulent fluid in the left pleural cavity. from statistics relating to burials in Jewish cemeteries that About six centimetres of the ninth rib were removed suban abnormally large proportion of young children are therein periosteally and 300 cubic centimetres of this purulent fluid which was least from at one were evacuated ; the lower lobe of the lung was adherent to buried, falsely assumed, by witness at the recent Royal Commission on Alien Immigra- the diaphragm which bulged upwards to a considerable detion, an abnormally high rate of infant mortality among the gree. Subphrenic suppuration was in consequence suspected Jews. In the paper under notice the fallacy of such an and on puncture thick brownish pus escaped. On incision assumption is clearly proved, as correct rates of infant or below the diaphragm 500 cubic centimetres of stinking pus, child mortality cannot be deduced from the recorded age containing masses of necrotic spleen tissue, were discharged, at death without knowledge of the number of infants and leaving a space, as large as too fists, with very thin walls, young children born or living, which information is not I beyond which the stomach, the liver, and coils of gut could available concerning Jews. Mr. Rosenbaum appears to be distinctly felt. The abscess occupied practically the establish the correctness of his assertion, with special refer- whole of the upper half of the spleen. The cavity ence to the aggregation of foreign Jews in the metropolitan was carefully cleaned out and packed with iodcform borough of Stepney, that the birth-rate among this Jewish gauze. Convalescence was somewhat protracted but three population is considerably higher than among the resident and a half months later the patient left the hospital, his English population and that infant mortality is considerably’wounds being completely healed. Since that timo -he lower, thus corroborating’the general impression that Jewish has remained healthy and is able to wojk. Dr. Federmann, ‘