Abstract
THIS book under notice is divided into two parts; the first gives an account of the Gram-Charlier curves and curve fitting taken, in places verbatim, from the author's “Theory of Probability “and the second part deals with a method of estimating rates of mortality from statistics of the numbers of deaths from various causes at each age. The object in finding a method which will enable the statistician to dispense with censuses, or exposed to risk, when estimating mortality is that in some cases only the deaths are known and in others the trouble and expense of obtaining a census, or exposed, are considerable. The author's method is to choose a system of frequency curves based on the hypothesis that the distribution of deaths according to age from certain groups of diseases can be made to conform to those assumed curves; proportional death rates are calculated for each age (or groups of ages) according to the grouped causes of death. From these figures, by a lengthy arithmetical process, the number dying in a stationary population is reached, and this leads to the rates of mortality. The method is interesting and in some cases it gives results which are in close agreement with those obtained by the usual methods, but, in other cases, the examples given seem to imply that there may be considerable errors in the result, although in these cases a modification of the groupings of deaths might lead to improvement. It would appear from a priori considerations that, in some circumstances, it must be impossible to obtain a satisfactory result from deaths alone (compare, for example, two experiences having rates of mortality such that the rates by one are equal to r times the rates of the other at all ages).
An Elementary Treatise on Frequency Curves and their Application in the Analysis of Death Curves and Life Tables.
By Arne Fisher. Translated from the Danish by E. A. Vigfusson. American edition. Pp. xvi + 244. (New York: The Macmillan Co.; London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1922.) 20s. net.
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
An Elementary Treatise on Frequency Curves and their Application in the Analysis of Death Curves and Life Tables. Nature 114, 345 (1924). https://doi.org/10.1038/114345a0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/114345a0