Figure 4.2 shows for each age group the proportion of mortality due to four principal diagnostic categories of causes of death: 1) infectious diseases (tuberculosis, diarrheal diseases, all other food-born or air-born infections, influenza, rheumatism, pneumonia and other acute respiratory diseases, septicemia, inflammatory diseases, venereal diseases, etc.); 2) degenerative diseases (cardiovascular diseases, cancers, chronic respiratory, digestive, geneto-urinary, nervous diseases); 3) external causes (accidents and violence); and 4) other and unspecified causes. The top figure presents information for Russian males in 1938-1939 while the lower panel presents the same information for U.S. males in 1940.