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Show Violence and Disease So successful has been our campaign against disease in the past two decades that Americans today stand almost as much chance of dying from some form of violence as from illness. Not that violence is increasing: rather disease is on the wane. Figures compiled by the World Health Organization in Geneva show that accidents, poisonings, violence apd suicide in the more advanced western countries take almost as many lives as all the diseases put together. In the United States, for example, the accidents and violence vio-lence category in 1956 accounted for more than 71 deaths per 100,000, whereas the mortality from illness was actually a shade lower, excepting only senility and causes unknown. This surprising turn of events is due in large part to the new and potent drugs of post-war medicine. Tuberculosis, , a case in point, killed 200 per 100,000 in 1900 more than the 1956 total for disease and violence combined. |