The number of living physicians by states was recently reported by this Bureau in The Journal (137:1550 [Aug. 21] 1948). The punch cards being developed by the Bureau's staff now permit an analysis of the age distribution of living physicians in the United States. Cards have not yet been punched for all June graduates of medical colleges and there is an unavoidable delay in reporting of deaths. These two facts should be kept in mind in any interpretations based on the following statistics.
The total number of physicians reported herein, 199,745, is slightly different from the 199,755 included in the previous report because of subsequent changes in the physician population. Approximately three fourths of all living physicians are in active practice.
Table 1 shows the age distribution of physicians as of July 1, 1948, for the United States based on our current punch card file and the corresponding figure