HEALTH AND LONGEVITY
Proportion of Births and
Deaths to Population—Small Infantile Mortality—Remarkable Longevity—Vigour
in Old Age.
TO bring together data
for my observations on the health of the community, chiefly in relation
to mortality and longevity, I had adopted what proved to be a very
unsatisfactory method, viz., to issue schedules to be filled up by the
various District Registrars throughout Shetland, when I was glad to find
the Eighth detailed Annual Report of the Registrar-General, issued in
February 1866, could supply all the information I required, fully
authenticated, and in a collected form. The Report is founded on the
registration returns for 1862. In making use of the Registrar-General's
tables, or my own deductions from them, I shall generally compare
Shetland with Scotland at large, and with the three great districts into
which he very wisely divides it, viz., the Insular Districts, the
Mainland Rural Districts, and the Town Districts.
The following is the
number of births and deaths in these districts in 1862, and their per
centage proportion to the population:—
Thus the per centage of
deaths is shown to be lower than
ill any county in
Scotland, save Sutherland, where it was 1*428, and Orkney, where it was
1*494 per cent. The per centage of mortality in Shetland was also
considerably less than that of the Insular districts, and the Mainland
Rural districts; very much less than that of Scotland as a whole, and
little more than half that of the Town districts; while it was rather
less than half that of Greenock, the most unhealthy town.
The comparative salubrity
of Shetland and the three great districts may be better illustrated by
the following table:—
With the facts presented
by these tables before us, it appears unnecessary to adduce further
evidence to prove that the mortality of Shetland in 1862 was much less
than that of other districts, and that it, therefore, is more salubrious
than they. Objections may be offered to that year being taken as
typical, as it was characterised by unusually great mortality ; but as
this remark applies about equally to all the districts, it is divested
of its force.
Let us now take the
mortality at the early and late periods of life.
Thus we have the
infantile mortality in Shetland more than 6 per cent less than that of
all Scotland; in this
respect, very nearly 6
per cent, below the Insular districts taken together, nearly 12 (11*7)
percent less than the Mainland Rural districts, and 24*7 per cent, less
than, or considerably below the half of, the death-rate amongst infants
in the Town districts, and this in a year when the number of deaths
amongst children in Shetland was unusually great—measles alone having
carried off twenty-one of their number. Taking the per centage of deaths
under five years of age, compared with the whole mortality in the three
important parishes of Tingwall, Sandwick and Conningsburgh, and
Dunrossness, for 1864, we have even a lower infantile death-rate.
Before giving the
mortality in Shetland as compared with that of the country at large, and
of the three great districts, it will be better to have before us the
data from which to calculate the per centage.
Comparing the mortality
at advanced ages during the year 1862, with the whole mortality in that
period, we have—
As the longevity of a
community is a criterion of its state of health, I have thought proper
to exhibit the comparative mortality of the different districts in a
tabulated form. From this it appears that rather more than a third of
the Shetland people live beyond threescore years and ten, which, since
the time of the inspired Psalmist, at least, has been held to sum up the
measure of our days. But in Shetland, if we are to take 1862 as a
typical year, 48*79 per cent, or nearly half, of the men and women who
attain the age of twenty may calculate on surviving that of seventy.
And, as 1862 was a year of greater mortality than usual, we may assume
that fully half of those who reach manhood survive seventy. In the towns
of Scotland, on the other hand, scarcely one-tenth (9*96 per cent) of
the population survive seventy; and only between a fifth and a fourth
(22*2 per cent.) of those who reach manhood and womanhood—assuming
twenty as that age— live to seventy, or beyond it. Again, in the
Shetland archipelago, nearly twice as many (15 per cent more), survive
seventy, as in the whole country. In this respect it is 12 per cent,
higher than the Mainland Rural districts, and 2 per cent, above the
Insular districts, of which latter it forms, in point of population, a
fifth. Advancing to higher ages, we have more striking results. Of those
who died after the age of eighty—as compared with the whole mortality—we
have, taking round numbers for our fractions, in Shetland, exactly
one-fifth; in Scotland, one-thirteenth; in towns, between
one-twenty-eighth and one-twenty-ninth; and in the Mainland Rural
districts, rather more than a tenth. Five times as many persons lived in
Shetland beyond ninety, proportionately, as in Scotland; fourteen times
as many as in towns, and more than three times as many as in the
Mainland. Shetland, while furnishing a ninety-sixth of the population of
Scotland, supplied two out of its thirty centenarians, who died between
the ages of one hundred and one hundred and five; while the towns, which
contain considerably more than a third of the Scottish people, supplied
five.
From the
Registrar-General’s tables, at page 31 of the Report so often referred
to, a decided tendency is shown by Shetlanders who survive seventy to
live beyond eighty. Thus there were thirty-two deaths between the ages
of seventy and seventy-five, but fqrty-two from eighty to eighty-five.
This tendency is not shown by Scotland, or any of its districts, save
the Insular. In Shetland the period of greatest mortality, after the age
of ten, was from eighty to eighty-five; in Scotland from seventy to
seventy-five; in Mainland districts, from seventy to seventy-five; in
the Insular districts it was equally from seventy-five to eighty, and
from eighty to eighty-five; but in towns it was sixty to sixty-five.
This tendency for those in Shetland who liye beyond seventy to survive
ten or more years longer, is shown by the pauper roll of the extensive
central parish of Tingwall, Whiteness, and Weisdale, in that county, a
copy of which, dated January 1865, lately examined. In this list are the
names of a hundred and twenty individuals, forty-six (or 38*33 per
cent.) of whom are beyond seventy years of age. The average age of those
beyond seventy is 80*04, and of those beyond eighty it is 85*265 years.
From the facts now before us, it appears to me impossible to come to any
other conclusion than that the Shetland people attain a greater age than
those of the country, and its three great statistical divisions
generally. From glancing over the tables, I have no doubt longevity
there could be proved greater than that of any individual county; but to
go into that would unnecessarily prolong this paper.
The doctrine now proved,
by a process as nearly as possible resembling mathematical
demonstration, was long entertained by me as an opinion, and was formed
in a totally different manner. I have frequently observed that
Shetlanders retain the vigour and “fresh” appearance of. later manhood,
or middle age, when far advanced in old age. Thus, I have seen a man of
eighty-five row in a boat with two oars, with great agility and
swiftness, amongst whose bushy locks incipient grey hairs could only be
detected on close inspection, and who was supposed by an intelligent
observer to be between fifty and sixty. Not unfrequently men upwards of
eighty are found fully able for the extraordinary fatigue and exposure
of the Shetland deep-sea fishing. I have also been frequently struck by
patients at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary giving their age as fifty or
forty-five, whom, if I had met them in the distant Shetlands, I would
have believed from their appearance to be sixty or seventy.
On longevity in this
archipelago, Dr Hibbert, the author of by far the best work on Shetland,
makes the following remark—“ If, however, the reports of instances of
great longevity are to be depended upon as they appear in Buchanan’s
History, or in the statistical accounts of different parishes that have
been published, several remarkable ages appear from ninety to one
hundred and five, or even one hundred and twenty. A native of Walls, of
the name of Lawrence, is said at the age of one hundred to have married
a wife, and when one hundred and forty years old to have gone out to sea
in his little boat. Brand, in commenting on the salubrity of the
climate, refers to “ the many vigorous old people that abound on the
Isles, whose health is, I think, more firm and sound than with us,
neither are they liable to such frequent sickness; ” and mentions the
case of "one, Tairvile, who lived one hundred and eighty years, and all
his time never drank beer or ale,” and adds that “his son also, and
grandchildren, lived to a good old age;” and that “it is said that
Tairvile’s father lived longer than himself.” Although Mr Brand was
evidently, from his little work, a man much distinguished for ability,
learning, and piety, he appears to have been rather credulous, which
weakness in his admirable character we will do well to remember before
fully crediting what he received at second hand.
As illustrative of the
longevity in Shetland, it is worthy of remark, that the oldest clerygman
in the British Isles—the Rev. Dr Ingram, of the Free Church, Unst—resides
in that county. This venerable and much respected patriarch has
completed the ninety-eighth year of his age and the seventy-first of his
ministry. |