Here we see the decline over time in the proportion of mortality at different ages attributable to infections ranging from tuberculosis to diuphtheria, measles and gastro-intestinal infections.

The downward spike in 1918 is because most excess deaths were from pneumonia rather than �influenza�. Rates of pneumonia were much lower than those for infectious diseases either side of the 1918 Spanish flu � making up less than 10% of all deaths among those aged

The sharp decline mid-century is not well understood and is under-researched. The precise role of the introduction and use of anti-biotics is important question.. Mackenbach�s work suggesting that this played a role in the Netherlands at least.

With the decline of infectious diseases life-expectancy in particular becomes more strongly related to the influence of individual behaviours. This is apparent with the widening gap in male to female life-expectancy over the 20th Century which rose from 4 years in 1900 to a peak of just over 6 years in the late 1960s.