Healthy Year

The U.S. had never boasted rosier cheeks. Last week the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. reported that the death rate this year is the lowest and the number of births the highest in the nation's history.

In 1947's first six months, the death rate among Metropolitan policyholders (not counting deaths from war wounds) dropped to a record low of 7.6 per 1,000 --3.8% less than last year. There were fewer deaths from most of the major diseases (outstanding exception: cancer). There was also a sharp decline in deaths by violence (suicides, murders, accidents). The report's forecast: thanks to prosperity and medical progress, 1947 will almost certainly set a new low U.S. mortality record.

For the first six months of the year the number of births is 40% above last year's record (see chart). Spurred by a sharp postwar rise in marriages, the birth rate began a sharp rise in mid-1946; 1947 births, the report predicted, may well set a new record.

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