Malaria and Rome: A History of Malaria in Ancient Italy by Robert Sallares

Author:Robert Sallares [Sallares, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: ISBN-13: 9780199248506, Oxford University Press, USA, History
ISBN: 9780199248506
Amazon: 0199248508
Barnesnoble: 0199248508
Goodreads: 3363097
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2002-11-07T05:00:00+00:00

1.1

0.7

15–19

1.3

1.0

20–9

2.0

1.3

30–9

2.7

1.6

40–9

4.2

1.9

50–9

4.7

2.9

60–9

5.9

5.7

Note: Bold type indicates items which deviate significantly from the values predicted by the model life-tables.

The demographic pattern found by Dobson in the English

marsh parishes is not dissimilar to the pattern of Grosseto, but with differences in detail; this is not surprising taking account of the fact that P. falciparum malaria was absent from England, not to mention numerous other environmental differences between England and Italy. In the English marsh parishes there was no deviation of the mortality level from the model’s expectations in the 5–9 age group.

This is comprehensible, since no significant degree of mortality produced directly by P. vivax in this age-group is to be expected.

P. vivax does not produce death directly itself in the same way that ¹⁴⁰ Del Panta et al. (1996: 162–4); Livi-Bacci (2000: 98–9, 145–6).

¹⁴¹ Gregorovius (1902: 90).

¹⁴² Data for the parishes of Canewdon, South Benfleet, Burnham and Tollesbury, which Dobson (1997: 169) compared to Coale and Demeny Model West Level 6.

164

Demography of malaria

P. falciparum does among children in tropical Africa today. The deviation in the English marsh parishes from the model pattern started at age 10, not 20, as in Grosseto, and steadily increased from the age of 30 onwards. Coale and Demeny Model West Level 6

gives a very good fit to English data up to the age of 20. However, Table 7 shows that this comparison is unsatisfactory from age 20

onwards.

Table 7. Number of people aged 20+ who die between ages x and y Interval

Marsh

West 6

West 2

West 1

parishes

20–9

18.3

14.1

19.1

20.7

20–39

36.8

28.8

37.7

40.4

20–49

58.6

44.1

53.5

56.7

20–59

75.9

61.2

69.9

73.0

20–69

87.4

80.3

87.0

89.1

Table 7 shows that from age 20 onwards the mortality rates predicted by Model West Level 6 are far too low. The attested rates of attrition are roughly consistent with Levels 1 and 2, with a life expectancy at birth of between 20 and 22.5, rather than 32.5 as in Level 6. In so far as the Coale–Demeny models are of any relevance at all, the English data indicate a drop from Level 6 mortality in the first ten years of life to a lower level from ages 10 to 20, followed by a sharp drop down to Level 1 or 2 from age 20 onwards.

Consequently life expectancy at birth in the English marsh parishes was probably rather lower than 33, the figure suggested by Level 6.

This would not be surprising in view of the exceedingly high crude death rates for the marsh parishes, up to 80 per 1,000. Nevertheless a more important conclusion, for the purposes of this chapter, is that when all the obvious environmental differences between the English marshlands and western central Italy are considered, the mortality patterns produced by P. vivax in England and the combination of P. falciparum and P. vivax in western central Italy were remarkably similar. Both were characterized by very excessive age-specific adult mortality relative to the prevailing levels of infant mortality.

Similarly Tognotti described deviations in the age-structure of mortality on Sardinia, which had some of the most intense malaria in the western Mediterranean. In Sardinia infant mortality in the Demography of malaria

165

first year of life was

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