The obituaries published in The Journal in 1948 and summarized in the editorial in the January 22 issue of The Journal1 furnished data on which could be based an analysis of the leading causes of death among physicians, and a comparison of these leading causes with those of the population of the United States in general. Only 3,167 of the 3,230 reported deaths are analyzed, since the causes of death for 63 physicians were not reported.
The seven leading causes of death in the general population are: diseases of the heart, cancer, intracranial lesions of vascular origin (cerebrovascular), accidents, nephritis, pneumonia and influenza, and tuberculosis. These are not the same as the seven leading causes of death among physicians. For example, arteriosclerosis, diabetes and cirrhosis of the liver each caused more deaths among physicians than tuberculosis. For purposes of comparison with other published studies, particularly the bulletin, "What Is