The table below shows death rates based on the estimated midyear population. Pneumonia and influenza rates are included for the year 1918 to show comparative data for the influenza epidemic. The dramatic death-rate decline of tuberculosis, diphtheria, and typhoid fever was perhaps more attributable to the public health and sanitation1 efforts of the time than to available vaccines. The death rate for cancer, however, rose during the decade and has steadily increased since the beginning of the century. (The data for heart disease do not include diseases of the coronary arteries.)

Source: Historical Statistics of the United States 1789-1945 (Washington, D.C.: Bureau of the Census, 1949), pp. 48-49.

Sources:

James Bordley III and A. McGehee Harvey, Two Centuries of American Medicine, 1776-1976 (Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders, 1976);

Richard...