TY  - JOUR
AU  - Fogel,Robert W.
AU  - Cain,Louis
AU  - Burton,Joseph
AU  - Bettenhausen,Brian
TI  - Was What Ail'd Ya' What Kill'd Ya'?
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 17322
PY  - 2011
Y2  - August 2011
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w17322
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w17322.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Robert W. Fogel
E-Mail: N/A user is deceased

Louis Cain
Loyola University Chicago
E-Mail: lcain@luc.edu

Joseph Burton
Center for Population Economics
University of Chicago  - GSB
1101 E. 58th Street
Chicago, IL 60637
E-Mail: jburton@cpe.uchicago.edu

Brian Bettenhausen
CPE
University of Chicago
E-Mail: bbett@cpe.uchicago.edu
AB  - Making use of those Union Army veterans for whom death certificates are available, we compare the conditions with which they were diagnosed by Civil War pension surgeons to the causes of death on the certificates.  We divide the data between those veterans who entered the pension system early because of war injuries and those who entered the pension system after the 1890 reform that made it available to many more veterans. We examine the correlation between specific conditions and death causes to gauge support for the hypothesis that death is attributable to something specific. We also examine the correlation between the accumulation of rated conditions to time until death to gauge support for the “insult hypothesis.”  In general, we find support for both hypotheses. Examining the hazard ratios for dying of a specific condition, there is support for the idea that what ail’d ya’ is what kill’d ya’.
ER  -