TABLE NUMBER XXICauses of the Negro Mortality Comparing Periods of Seven Months, January to July, 1915 and January to July, 1917.CAUSES19151917Pneumonia (all forms)64183Tuberculosis (all forms)5151Bright’s Disease and Nephritis2123Apoplexy920Meningitis117Syphilis126Heart Disease2345Diabetes45Cancer (all forms)98Bronchitis (all forms)49Scarlet Fever21Whooping Cough11Diphtheria12Typhoid Fever25Measles30Poliomyelitis02Peritonitis05Rickets51Puerperal Septicaemia14Uremia04Asphyxia06Cirrhosis of Liver20Accidents1216Homicide83All other causes60110295527
TABLE NUMBER XXI
Causes of the Negro Mortality Comparing Periods of Seven Months, January to July, 1915 and January to July, 1917.
From a glance at the Negro mortality figures in Pittsburgh during the first seven months of 1917, (TableNo.XXI), we observe the startling total of five hundred and twenty-seven deaths (excluding still births) as compared with two hundred and ninety-five deaths in 1915 during the ante-migration period, an increase of seventy-eight percent. While it is true that the Negro population has increased according to our estimate about forty-five percent during the past two years, this expansion in nowise explains the disquieting increase in mortality. An examination of the table also reveals the character of this increase. Pneumonia cases have increased nearly two hundred percent; we also had a marked increase in acute bronchitis and meningitis, and almost twice as many deaths from heart disease.
It is often claimed that the Negro is affected by climatic changes. Transferred suddenly into a northern climate, and compelled to live in all sorts of dwellings, often with no ventilation and light and in congested quarters, he may easily succumb to disease. Unaccustomed as he is to the heavy labor and pace-setting of the Pittsburgh industries, it can readily be seen how rapidly his health is undermined through excessive and hard labor. The fact that there has been no increase in tuberculosis is in accord with the expressed opinion of many colored physicians interviewed, who claimed that this disease is mainly a city product, and that the newcomers, especially those coming from isolated southern districts, are apt to be relatively free from this disease for a considerable period after their arrival in Pittsburgh.
TABLE NUMBER XXII
Record of Negro Morbidity for a Period of Six Months Before the Migration, as Compared with an Equal Period during the Migration in the West Penn Mercy andSt.Francis Hospitals.
Table number XXIIwas ascertained from a study of the records of three of the largest hospitals in Pittsburgh, as to thetreatment of Negro patients in these Institutions for a period of six months before the migration and an equal period during the migration. Although this table proved interesting, as showing the amount, kind and extent of the hospital morbidity among the colored people, it is not at all conclusive. That the hospital records give no clue to the sickness among the Negroes is apparent from the following: Eighty to ninety percent of the hospital cases examined were ward patients. Very few Negroes can afford private rooms, and almost every colored physician complained of the difficulty he had in securing places for his patients. It is only fair to state however, that one of the largest hospitals in the city, had no such charge lodged against it.
Aside from possible difficulty in securing beds in the hospitals, there is another cause for the scanty number of Negro hospital cases. The Negro not only because of his ignorance, but perhaps even more because of his inclinations to voodooism and superstition, feels an aversion to the hospital, where he thinks the knife and the “black bottle” are frequently used. He is still child-like in many ways, and will prefer all sorts of patent medicines and quack doctors rather than expose himself to the surgeon’s knife in a hospital; and chooses to stay at home among his own people where he may “die in peace.”
TABLE NUMBER XXIII
Comparative Record of the Births and Deaths of Negroes and the Entire City Population, during the Year of 1915 and the First Seven Months of 1917.
Table displaying the number of births and deaths for negroes versus the overall population
There is no more striking phase of the local Negro problem, than that shown intable number XXIII. These figures disclose the astonishing fact that the death rate among Negroes in this city during the first seven months of 1917, was forty-eight percent greater than the birth rate. In other words, while in the city population as a whole, the number of deaths was thirty percent less than the number of births, the numberof deaths among colored people was forty-eight percent more than the number of births; thus, for every one hundred persons born in Pittsburgh in 1917, there were seventy deaths, while among the colored population, for every one hundred children born, one hundred and forty-eight persons died.
These figures seem of sinister significance to the Negro race. Even when taking into consideration the facts that the migration is largely that of single males, rather than that of families, and that because most of the women here are doing some work outside the home there is a definite policy of limiting their birth rate, there still remains the fact that even during the entire year of 1915, while the birth rate of the entire city population was practically twice the death rate, the excess number of births over deaths among colored people was only twenty-nine in a total of over five hundred.
TABLE NUMBER XXIV
Ages of Persons who Died Within the First Seven Months of 1917.