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The second cause anecting the statistics was the outbreak 01 war. A young ana
healthy section of the population was, from September, 1939, excluded from the
mortality statistics, which henceforth related only to civilians. This selective factor
was bound to inflate the death-rates, since the population in respect of which they
were calculated was now on the average older and less healthy.
To mark the discontinuity in the diagram, the curves have been broken at 1939.
In so far as the slopes of the curves before and after 1940 are more important than
absolute figures, it is possible to take the two parts of the diagram together and to
observe continuity in trend. To reduce the confusing effect of the large-scale reclassification
of deaths, heart disease and bronchitis have been combined.
The death-rate from all causes, which, with the increasing age of the population,
had been slowly rising before the war rose sharply in 1940. This rise was
partly a feature of the war-time statistical basis as explained above, but the heavy
toll of air-raids (2.59 per 1,000 in 1940) was an important contributory factor. Even
in 1945 the fatality from V-bombs was 0.34 per 1,000. The rate for 1946, at 12.6,
represents a close approach to the pre-war level.
Tuberculosis
Another cause of the rise in the death-rate, notably in 1941, was the increase in
deaths from tuberculosis. This rise was only temporary and measured the effect of
war conditions in hastening the death of those with advanced tuberculosis. The
war-time experience in both mortality and morbidity is more fully discussed in a later
paragraph.
Bronchitis
and heart
disease
The death-rate for the bronchitis and heart disease group has followed a similar
trend to that of the rate for "all causes" of which it forms a large part. Figures for
the component diseases are shown in table 4 (page 19). Mortality from heart
disease and bronchitis, after reaching a higher level in the early years of the war,
subsided, and for the last two years has declined.
Pneumonia
and other
respiratory
diseases
Mortality trom pneumonia rose sharply in ia-lU and remained higher than
formerly until 1943, when it began to fall, reaching in 1945 and maintaining in 1946
a level lower than the average of the immediate pre-war years. The rate for "other
respiratory diseases" was distorted in 1940 by the statistical revision but has since
declined fairly steadily.
Diabetes
Diabetes mortality tell steadily throughout the war. rood rationing has
presumably been a contributory factor.
Cancer
Despite the ageing of the population, the cancer death-rate has declined in the
last two years.
A disturbing feature of the cancer statistics has been the persistent rise in recorded
deaths from cancer of the lung. The mortality from cancer of the respiratory
system as a whole in London has between 1931 and 1946 almost doubled for men,
and increased by a third for women. The Registrar-General, in commenting on the
national figures in the Text of the Statistical Reviews, 1938 and 1939, remarks on
the fact that the standardised death rate from cancer of the lung in males rose 78
per cent, between 1931-35 and 1939 and he is not yet prepared to say whether this