Patterns of mortality in Armenian parish records from eleven countries

A study of the trends and distributions of mortality in parish records of Armenian churches from 11 countries spanning over 242 years is the basis of this report. In all parishes, the relative proportion of deaths in the older age groups gradually increased over the study period. Following a review of the most important causes of death, an effort was made to identify clusters and outbreaks of specific causes of death. Thus, in the 19th century, five epidemics of cholera were identified in one parish in Kutahya, Turkey (1831, 1848, 1865, 1871, and 1893). A review of the deaths due to the 1918 influenza pandemic revealed a major peak in October-December 1918 in Cairo, and deaths due to the same cause recorded in November-December 1918 in Rangoon, Dacca, and Calcutta. As observed elsewhere in the classic pattern of this pandemic, the largest number of these deaths were in persons who were in their twenties. In September-December 1942, in Thessaloniki, Greece, 31 deaths of all age groups were ascribed to a fever that was described as "toxic." The nature of this epidemic could not be explained. The observation that large numbers of recorded deaths occurred through violence and hunger during the First and Second World Wars as a result of the atrocities to which these communities were exposed sheds further light on historical events in those years.