The principal reported causes of death have changed dramatically since the 1860s, though changes in categorization of causes and improved diagnosis make it difficult to be precise about timings. Diseases particularly affecting children such as measles and whooping cough largely disappeared as killers by the 1950s. Deaths particularly linked to unclean environments and poor sanitary infrastructure also declined, though some can kill babies and the elderly even today. Pulmonary tuberculosis and bronchitis were eventually largely controlled. Reported cancer, stroke, and heart disease mortality showed upward trends well into the second half of the twentieth century, though some of this was linked to diagnostic improvement. Both fell in the last decades of our period, but Scotland still had among the highest rates in Western Europe. Deaths from accidents and drowning saw significant falls since World War Two but, especially in the past 25 years, suicide, and alcohol and drug-related deaths rose.
