It is now nearly a decade since the author had the honour of submitting a paper on the mortality of assured lives in India, and the manner of its reception by the members of the Institute has emboldened him to make a second venture. Particular impetus was given to the writing of this paper by the fact that, in the discussion that followed the reading of the earlier paper, several speakers observed that they would be interested to know the results of an analysis of the mortality prevailing in the large subcontinent of India, subject to varying climates and other conditions of life, according to geographical situation, and an attempt has now been made to give this information as revealed by the statistics of the “Oriental”. The words, “the more investigations were made into mortality in various parts of the world and in various types of business the better”, with which Sir (then Mr) William Elderton closed his observations on the earlier paper, are typical of the attitude of the Institute towards papers on mortality investigations, particularly as applied to countries like India, which are becoming very important from a life assurance point of view. Information concerning the mortality to which the various parts of the country are subject is, however, still very meagre.

There are so many phases of the problem of blood pressure that I shall limit myself to dealing with a recent investigation of the mortality on lives accepted as “standard risks” by the New York Life Insurance Company.

The experience investigated was that of new policies issued from 1925 to 1936, inclusive, observed from entry until the anniversaries of the policies in 1937. The investigation was by policies and was divided into two groups, (a) those in which there was no impairment, and (b) those in which there appeared minor impairments but not of sufficient moment to place the policyholders in a substandard group. The expected deaths were obtained according to the company's standard experience for the same years of issue and exposure. The total number of policies emerging by death was 9552.