Thursday, September 22, 2016

A Slightly Morbid Interlude


I don't often talk about matters of life and death in this blog. Except for the upcoming election.  But be that as it may, and at the risk of being a bit morbid, let's talk for a few moments about the ways we die.

According to this interesting summary, the life expectancy for an average man in 1901 was 47 years; for an average woman, it was 50. The top causes of death in 1901 were:


The top causes of death today, by comparison, are:


How about accidents? These were the top causes of accidental death in 1901:


I haven't been able to find a similar summary of the top causes of accidental death today, but this interesting chart breaks out the top ten causes of death by age group in 1914 (click to embiggen it, or go to the CDC website on Injury Prevention and Control: Data and Statistics for much more detail):


I think this is a fairly comprehensive list, but I'd add a few other causes of death to it:

- Politically-Induced Cranial Fulmination*.

- Electro-optical Cerebral Deliquescence**.

- Fecal Encephalopathy*.

- (Men Only) Accidental death from broken neck caused by rapid head snap to observe an attractive woman.

What do you think are some other under-reported causes of death today? Leave a comment.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo


* Head explodes as a result of cognitive distress induced by available choices of presidential candidates.

** Brain dissolves from excessive watching of "reality" TV shows.

*** Shit for brains. Common among supporters of Donald Trump.

5 comments:

Margaret (Peggy or Peg too) said...

Hmm...this didn't give me a lot of hope this morning with my age group. Although suicide may be the ticket after this election.

John A Hill said...

*side note -- the last chart is for 2014

At least it appears that people are less likely to kill people our age as homicide drops from the chart. Maybe that means that Darwin was right and most of the real ass clowns didn't make it this far.

Mike said...

I think gun deaths should be their own category.

Big Sky Heidi said...

I like the category fecal encephalopathy.

Hell Hound said...

Death from boredom when football season is in progress.