Demographic aging: a notion to revisit.

"The article analyzes the concept of ¿demographic aging', why ¿age 60' (years) was chosen as a threshold for the start of ¿aging', and how these notions have been applied in France. Since the nineteenth century, tremendous changes have occurred in the meaning of ¿age 60', both in terms of the social and familial roles a person of that age is expected to play, and in terms of expectations regarding such persons' productivity. The author argues that the notions of ¿demographic aging' and ¿age 60' have been conducive to a negative portrayal of old age, have served as a hindrance in the development of social policy towards aged people, have played a role in reducing the number of active people over 55 years, and have reduced medical research on the processes of aging."

[Population history, medical and health history: fifty years of shared experiences]. / Histoire de la population, histoire de la médecine et de la santé: cinquante ans d'expérimentations.

The history of epidemics and health has been completely revised in France as a result of studies done by the Annales School and on the basis of the results of historical demographic research of the nineteen fifties and nineteen sixties. The discovery of peaks in mortality in long-term death rates and the construction of a model for the mortality crisis of the Ancien regime have led to the study of past epidemics and their relation with malnutrition. Effects related with the development of historical anthropology and the publications of Michel Foucault have also had an influence. This article notes the important place of the history of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in efforts to understand the marked decrease in mortality in developed countries, the disappearance of large epidemics, and the increase in endemics. Methods developed by population historians have made it possible to refine the analyses of this decrease despite variations in nosology. In addition, this article suggests especially promising avenues for future research.

The evolution of mortality in an industrial town: Le Creusot in the nineteenth century.

"The article examines the population of the town of Le Creusot [France]...with respect to the characteristics and evolution of mortality in the second third of the nineteenth century.... The authors analyze mortality statistics of Le Creusot in relation to other towns in the same department (Saone-et-Loire), to the neighboring city of Lyon, to another industrial town, Seraing, and with France as a whole. The effects of industrialization and the influx of labor on the mortality rate of Le Creusot appear to be undeniable. Life expectancy at birth among inhabitants of Le Creusot in 1836 was thus attained again only in 1876, after forty years of worsening living and environmental conditions. Among the causes noted for excess mortality in industrial towns, it is important to distinguish those due to working conditions (accidents, fatigue) and the direct consequences of industrial activity (factory smoke, toxic waste) from those due to living and housing conditions and the state of public and private hygiene in the town."

[The evolutionary threshhold of age from old age: comparative approaches in France and Sweden]. / Un seuil évolutif d'âge de la viellesse: approches comparées France-Suède.

The major criticism to be made concerning studies of ageing populations is that the threshold chosen as the entry into old age has remained fixed. However, in recent years, the realities of the age at which one becomes elderly have changed so much that persons in the category "over 60", for example, no longer occupy the same place in the succession of generations, the same economic and social roles as their not so distant forefathers. In particular, they no longer have the same life expectancy or the same state of health. Therefore, how are we to understand and interpret the growing proportion of older persons in our populations? To get out of this impasse, this article presents one possibility for determining an evolutionary threshold--it is one of the conditions of the comparison-- for entry into old age. It depends on the state of health of the persons concerned at each stage. This synthetic indicator has been applied in the French and Swedish populations since the mid-nineteenth century. The results underline the extent of the changes that have occurred, especially in the twentieth century, the closeness of the thresholds between the two countries at the beginning and end of the period, as well as the differences in the progress of masculine life expectancy. Although the proposed indicator can certainly be improved, it emerges strengthened by this comparative approach.

[The role of interhuman contacts in the transmission of cholera, epidemics of 1832 and 1854]. / Sur le role des contacts interhumains dans la transmission du choléra, épidémies de 1832 et 1854.

By mapping the evidence of excess mortality month by month for cholera epidemics of 1832 and 1854, which were the most deadly and most typical of their kind in France, the authors are able to provide a kinetic description of the propagation of the Asian disease throughout the whole of France. Traditionally it has been assumed that hydric anademia explains, for the most part, the paths taken by the disease and its varying intensity, but the importance of direct interhuman contamination is demonstrated by the similitude between the ways gone along by the propagation and these of the circulation of men and goods. The evolution in the structure and volume of commercial exchanges in the first half of the nineteenth century in France, may account for the fact new areas of propagation of disease appeared in 1854, pointing to an increase in mobility and the opening up of entire regions to trade. Nevertheless, the example of migrants from Paris to Guéret seems to show that the part of "healthy germ-carriers" in the contamination is very slight.