Jewish susceptibility to various diseases as compared with that of the Scotchman, the Irishman and the Englishman, was established here by medical data, producing the greatest surprise among doctors.
Mortality figures for all the principal diseases were collected. There were enough of them to ensure that any deductions were correctly drawn and not based on coincidences.
This is what they show:
1. That Jews suffer far more from nervous diseases than Christians. Under similar conditions, the number of Jewish patients may be two or three times as great. This, the psychologists explain, has a fairly obvious cause. For centuries the Jews have been persecuted. Years of worry and unhappiness have left an indelible imprint on the race.
SUBJECT TO DIABETES
2. Jews are from two to six times as liable to diabetes, according to the locality, as compared to other people. The reason is unknown.
3. The Jew comes off well in infectious diseases. Epidemics of diphtheria, measles and cholera may sweep a country, but statistics show that the individual Jew is only half as likely to be infected as the average non-Jew.
4. In smallpox, Jews have only one-tenth the mortality of non-Jews.
5. The world tuberculosis death rate among Jews is only half that of the average race, and only one-fourth that of Italians and Irish.
Although no definite explanations can be given as yet for these figures, one theory is advanced that the inbreeding among Jews has led to a strain which can resist certain diseases.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
