a town of France, capital of an arrondissement of the same name in the department of Orne, is situated on the summit and sides of a hill, 20 miles E. by N. of Alençon. It is well built, with a square in the centre; the principal buildings being the church, court-house, and prison. Linen, pottery, and leather are manufactured; and a considerable trade is carried on in linen, hemp, grains, and live stock. Mortagne was formerly the capital of Perche, and, from its strong position, a place of some importance. Pop. (1851) 4848. Mortality, Human.
We shall consider this very important, as well as curious subject, under two distinct heads; the first of which will treat of the History and Formation of Bills of Mortality; the second, of the Law of Mortality.
I. Mortality, Bills of.
Bills of Mortality are abstracts from parish registers, showing, as their name imports, the numbers that have died in any parish or place during certain periods of time, as in each week, month, or year; and are accordingly denominated weekly, monthly, or yearly bills. They also include the numbers of the baptisms during the same periods, and generally those of the marriages.
The objects of the present article are these:—First, to give a brief history of the principal things that have been done in this way, which may suffice for such as are not disposed to go further into the subject, and may at the same time indicate the best sources of information.
As both mortuary registers and enumerations of the people are much more valuable when combined than when separate, we shall also notice some of the principal enumerations, the results of which have been published. We shall then point out some of the principal defects in most of the published registers and enumerations; and, lastly, shall submit some forms for registers which will be easily convertible to useful purposes.
The ancients do not appear to have kept any exact mortuary registers, at least no account of any registers of that kind, with the ages of the deceased, have come down to us; and although in the Roman census, first established by Servius Tullius, both the ages and sexes of the people were distinguished, we have no exact account of these particulars. Indeed the principal object of the census among that warlike people, was the levying of men and money for the purposes of conquest; the duration of human life appears to have occupied very little of their attention, and their proficiency in the science of quantity was not sufficient either to show them the necessary data, or to enable them to draw just inferences from them. A good account of what the ancient Romans did in this way, with references to the original authorities, may be found in the Italian translation of M. Demoivre's Treatise of Annuities on Lives, by Gaeta and Fontana, Milan, 1776. (Discorso Preliminare, parte 2.)
The keeping of parish registers commenced in England in 1538, in consequence of an injunction issued by Thomas Cromwell, who, after the abolition of the Pope's authority in this kingdom, in the reign of Henry VIII., had been appointed the king's vicegerent in ecclesiastical affairs. Some parish registers in Germany appear to have commenced with the sixteenth century; and in the Göttliche Ordnung of Siissmilch (t. iii. s. 23), we are informed, that at the time of Lord Cromwell's injunction, they had already old registers of that kind both at Augsburg and Breslau. However, the extracts there given from the Augsburg registers do not go back further than the year 1501, nor those for Breslau beyond 1555. About the beginning of the seventeenth century, such registers appear to have been established in most parts of Europe; but it was not until the year 1662 that they began to attract public notice, and to be considered as the sources of valuable and interesting information. In that year John Graunt, a citizen of London (afterwards an officer in the trained bands of the city, and a fellow of the Royal Society), published his Natural and Political Observations on the Bills of Mortality, principally those for London. The London bills, or accounts of baptisms and burials, appear to have been occasioned by the plague, and to have been begun in the year 1592, a time of great mortality. They were afterwards discontinued, but were resumed in 1603, after the great plague of that year. They have ever since been continued weekly, and an annual bill also has been regularly published. In 1629, the number of deaths by the different diseases and casualties, were first inserted in them, also the distinction of the sexes; and these have been continued ever since. But it is in the totals only of the baptisms and burials that the sexes are distinguished in these bills. They do not show how many of each sex died of each disease, neither have they, since 1728, when the distinction of the ages of the dead was first introduced, shewn how many of each sex died in each interval of age, but only the total number of both sexes.
This book of Graunt's, although the first, is also one of the best that have been published on the subject. It contains many judicious observations on the imperfections of the bills, on the proportions of the deaths from different diseases and casualties, and on their increase and decrease, with the probable causes of such fluctuations. He also observed, that "the more sickly the years are, the less fecund or fruitful of children also they be."
Besides the London bills, he gave one for a country parish in Hampshire, in the first edition of his book; and, in an appendix to the later editions, two others, one for Tiverton, the other for Cranbrook in Kent, with a few observations on foreign bills. He almost always reasons justly from his data; but, as these were very imperfect, in his endeavours to draw more information from them than they could supply, he has sometimes fallen into error.
Even in this enlightened age, when a much greater proportion of the people devote a portion of their leisure to the acquisition of knowledge than in Graunt's time, subjects of this kind have but few attractions for the generality even of reading men, who cannot endure the fatigue of thinking closely for any length of time. The author, accordingly, expected his readers to be rather select than numerous, and was ambitious of that distinction, as appears by the motto he prefixed to his work,
Nemo me ut miretur turba, laboro, Contentus paucis lectoribus.
The book was, however, favourably received by the public, and went through five editions in fifteen years, the two first in 4to, the three others in 8vo; the last of them, published in 1676, two years after the author's death, was edited by his friend Sir William Petty, who, in consequence of having sometimes spoken of this edition as his own, has by some writers been erroneously considered as the author.
Graunt's observations, like all others of a similar kind, by shewing the usefulness of parish registers and bills of mortality, contributed to form a taste for these inquiries amongst thinking men; and, consequently, to improve both the registers and the bills derived from them; so that, from his time, the subject has been continually cultivated more and more. Parish registers, in most parts of Europe, have been kept with more care; and a succession of works of considerable merit have been published on the subject, containing an Mortality, important part of the natural and political history of our species, and affording valuable materials for the science of political economy.
The principal of these works we shall proceed to give a short account of, in the order of their publication.
As the ages at which the deaths took place were not inserted in the London bills till 1728, Captain Graunt could not avail himself of that important information, but made a fruitless attempt to determine the law of mortality without it.
Dr. Halley. The Breslau bills appear to have been the first wherein the ages at which the deaths took place were inserted, and the most important information which bills of mortality can afford was first drawn from them by Dr. Halley; who, in 1692, constructed a table of mortality for Breslau from these bills for the five preceding years, and inserted a paper on the subject in the Philosophical Transactions, (No. 195.)
In 1699, Dr. Davenant, in An Essay upon the probable Methods of making a People Gainers in the Balance of Trade, published some extracts from Natural and Political Observations and Conclusions upon the State and Condition of England, by permission of their author, Mr. Gregory King, Lancaster herald, who had completed them in 1696, though they still remained in manuscript; and the whole of this very curious production was published by Mr. Chalmers at the end of his Estimate in 1802. Mr. King derived his information from the poll-books; from actual observations in particular places; from the assessments on marriages, births, and burials; and from the parish registers. Many of his conclusions agree surprisingly well, considering the time he wrote, with those which are the results of a hundred years of further observations and inquiries. He had access to much better data than Graunt, and his conclusions are more accurate; but he does not explain so fully how he arrived at them.
From the publication of Davenant's essay, above mentioned, nearly forty years had elapsed without any thing further being done in this way, when M. Kersseboom published an essay, in the Dutch language, on the probable number of people in Holland and West Friesland, which he deduced from the Bills of Mortality, Hague, 1738, 4to; and two others in 1740 and 1742. (See Law of Human Mortality.)
In 1742 was published the first edition of the celebrated work, entitled Die Gütliche Ordnung in den Veränderungen des menschlichen Geschlechts aus der Geburt, dem Tode und der Fortpflanzung desselben erweisen von Johann Peter Süssmilch. The second edition appeared in 1761, enriched with the materials which had been laid before the public through various channels in the interim; the third in 1765, and in 1775 a fourth edition of the two volumes of J. Baumann Süssmilch was published by Christian Jacob Baumann, to which this editor himself added, in 1776, a third volume, consisting of additions to the other two, and remarks upon them, with many new tables, and a copious index. The last edition of this work was published in 1798, but it does not appear to have been augmented or improved since 1776. It contains long dissertations on every thing not mathematical connected with the subject, and, besides original information, includes the substance of all the other publications on it previous to 1776; with an immense collection of materials, which, when borrowed, are often better arranged and rendered more convenient for reference, than they will be found to be in the works they were extracted from; besides, the original sources of information are always referred to, and these advantages, with that of a full index, render it a valuable work for occasional reference. The three thick octavo volumes contain upwards of two thousand three hundred pages, closely printed with a small type, and the tables alone occupy three hundred and thirty pages.
In 1746 was published the Essai de M. Deparcieux, which has been already mentioned in the historical introduction to the article Annuities. Information much wanted on this subject, was there given in a very clear and popular manner, and the work no doubt contributed greatly to the advancement of the science. It probably had some influence in promoting the establishment of what is called the Tabellvärket in Sweden, which took place in 1749, and of which we shall have occasion to take further notice presently.
In 1750 appeared, in octavo, New Observations natu-Dr. Short, ral, moral, civil, political, and medical, on City, Town, and Country Bills of Mortality; to which are added, large and clear Abstracts of the best Authors who have written on that subject; with an Appendix of the Weather and Meteors, by Thomas Short, M.D. which he had "had on the anvil" for eighteen years, as he informs us in the preface to his History of Air, Weather, &c. This author, with incredible labour collected extracts from the mortuary and baptismal registers in a great many market-towns and country parishes in England, chiefly in the northern counties, in almost every variety of soil and situation, and reduced them into tables in various ways, so as to enable him to draw useful inferences from them.
He informs us that Lord Cromwell's injunction in 1538 was but little regarded in many places till the year 1559, when another was issued for the same purpose by Queen Elizabeth; nevertheless, he had procured several exact country registers, commencing with 1538, and continued without one chasm, for more than two hundred years; and the registers before 1644, he considered to be much more valuable than afterwards, on account of the increase of dissenters from that time. He likewise procured both the numbers of families and of souls in seven of the market towns, and fifty-four of the country parishes, for which he had registers; and thus arrived at satisfactory information on several points, which, till then, had been very imperfectly understood. But the sexes were not distinguished in his enumerations; neither were the ages, in any of the enumerations or registers he has given accounts of, except in the London Bills of Mortality, and what he has taken from Dr. Halley, respecting those for Breslau.
Although Dr. Short took so much trouble in collecting materials, and has generally reasoned well upon them, he has shown but little skill, and does not appear to have taken much pains in communicating his information to his readers; so that it costs them considerable labour to find what they want, especially in his tables; and when found, to understand it.
In 1751 was first printed a tract by Corbyn Morris, entitled Observations on the past growth and present state of the City of London, with the most convenient and instructive tables of the London bills that have been printed; they contained the annual baptisms and burials from the year 1603, the number of annual deaths by each disease from 1675, and of each age from 1728; all brought down to the year 1750. This tract was reprinted in 1758, with a continuation of the tables to the end of 1757; these also contain useful annual averages and proportions. Mr. Morris's observations are generally very judicious, but he was one of those authors who appear to have laboured under much misconception with regard to the evils to be apprehended from the mortality of London, and what they considered to be its baneful effects in drawing recruits from the country. These writers did not perceive, or did not sufficiently consider, that the natural procreative power is much more than adequate to supply any waste of that kind, and that the real obstacle to the increase of the people, is the limited means of subsistence. This had been observed by Dr. Halley in his Further Considerations on the Breslau Bills of Mortality, (Phil. Trans. 1693,) though it there also appears, that he had not sufficiently considered the mode of its operation; this was first fully illustrated by Dr. Franklin in his excellent Observations on the Increase of Mankind, Peop- Mortality, ling of Countries, &c. written in Philadelphia in 1751, the Bills of same year in which Mr. Morris's pamphlet was first published. The author also pointed out in that pamphlet, material defects in the Bills of Mortality, and proposed a better method of keeping them, not only in London, but throughout the kingdom. This gave occasion to a paper by Mr. Dodson, which was inserted in the Philosophical Transactions for that year (1751), wherein he showed the importance of their being so kept as to afford the means of valuing annuities on lives, and proposed other alterations which appeared to him calculated to fit them for the purpose.
Nicolaas Struyck of Amsterdam, who, in his Introduction to General Geography, published there in 1740, had inserted (Gissingen over den staat van 't Menschelyk Geslacht.) Conjectures on the State of the Human Species; published at the same place in 1753, a quarto volume, the first half of which is astronomical, the other (216 pages) is entitled (Nader Ontdekkingen noopen den staat van het Menschelyk Geslacht.) Further Discoveries concerning the State of the Human Species. It contains statements of actual enumerations of the people in many Dutch villages, principally in North Holland, wherein the sexes are distinguished, and the numbers in childhood, celibacy, marriage, and widowhood; but with respect to their ages, it is only stated for each sex, how many were under ten years, and how many of the unmarried were above that age; except in two instances, wherein the number of each sex is given in each interval of five years of age, from birth to the extremity of life: they amount altogether to 2728, of whom not one was above the age of eighty-five, and only four above eighty.
He generally gives, for each place, the names and professions or occupations of the persons who made the enumeration, and the precise day on which it was made; or if it occupied the parties more days than one, those on which it was commenced and completed are given; a practice which shows a laudable solicitude about particulars, and a title to our confidence, the want of which we have great cause to lament in too many other writers.
Extracts from many parish registers are also given; in these, too, the ages are seldom noticed; but in a few cases they are given very minutely, especially in that of Westzaanam, for which, the numbers who died in each interval of five years of age, from birth to the extremity of life, are given; also the number in each year of age under fifteen, the number in each month of the first year of age, even the number that died in the first hour from birth, in the first twenty-four hours, and in each day of the first week of their age. During a term of nineteen years, the whole number of deaths thus registered was 3328; but the sexes were not distinguished under fifteen years of age, which Struyck himself lamented. The work also contains much information respecting the population and parish registers of Amsterdam, Haarlem, &c. with some accounts of other countries, and of other works on the subject.
In 1759 was published at London, in 4to, A Collection of the yearly Bills of Mortality, from 1657 to 1758 inclusive, together with several other Bills of an earlier date; to which were subjoined Captain Graunt's Observations; Another Essay in Political Arithmetic, by Sir William Petty; the Observations of Corbyn Morris, Esq.; and A Comparative View of the Diseases and Ages, with a Table of the Probabilities of Life for the last thirty years, by J. P. Esq. F. R. S. This is a valuable compilation, and has been generally attributed to Dr. Birch, the Secretary and Historian of the Royal Society; the preface is very judicious, and contains a good deal of information. For the following history of this publication, the author of the present article is indebted to the kindness of Dr. Heberden—
"The bills were collected into a volume by his father, the late Dr. Heberden. He procured, likewise, observations from several of his friends, rectors of some large parishes, or others likely to give him information; particularly from Mortality, Bishop Moss, Bishop Green, Bishop Squire, and Dr. Birch. These, together with some of his own remarks, were thrown into the form of a preface; and the whole was committed to the care of Dr. Birch. To make the calculations which appear at the end of the book, Dr. Heberden employed James Postlethwayt, Esq., a very distinguished arithmetician."
In the year 1766, this branch of knowledge was enriched M. Me with new materials, of more value than all that had previously been laid before the public. These were contained in three publications, of which we shall first notice the Recherches sur la Population des généralités d'Auvergne, de Lyon, de Rouen, et de quelques Provinces et Villes du Royaume. Par M. Messance, Receveur des Tailles de l'Election de Saint Etienne.
Most of the political writers in France, for some years previous to the date of this publication, had asserted confidently that the kingdom was depopulated, but without producing any proofs. The object of M. Messance was, to enable his readers to judge of the merit of such assertions, and to pronounce less vaguely on a subject in itself so interesting, the knowledge of which can only be obtained by a great number of facts and actual observations. The work, accordingly, is filled with tables, exhibiting the results of actual enumerations of the people, and of extracts from the parish registers. They show, for each sex, how many were under fourteen, or in celibacy above that age; those in the states of marriage and of widowhood; and the number of domestic servants. The numbers of families are also stated; and the enumerations of the ecclesiastics, properly classified, are given separately; but no other information respecting the ages of the living is given than that mentioned above. A great many statements are also inserted of the numbers that died in different parishes and more extensive districts, under five years of age, between five and ten, and in each interval of ten years, from thence to the age of one hundred; during different periods of from ten to forty years or more, generally ending about the year 1760; but in these the sexes are not distinguished.
In all cases, he has given the general results of his tables, and the proportions they afford, very distinctly stated; and among these results, the increase of the population during the preceding sixty years, to which his researches were generally limited, is clearly ascertained.
The work also contains many interesting tables, in which the rate of mortality and the produce of manufacturing labour, are compared with the contemporaneous prices of grain, in various places, generally for periods of twenty years each.
In the same year was published, at Yverdon, in octavo, the M. Muret-work entitled Mémoire sur l'Etat de la Population, dans le Pays de Vaud, qui a obtenu la prix proposé par la Société Economique de Berne. Par M. Muret, premier Pasteur à Vevey, et Secrétaire de la Société Economique de Vevey.
The Pays de Vaud contains 112 parishes, and the population at that time was about 113,000 souls. M. Muret wrote for information to all the clergymen in the country, who made him returns of the numbers of baptisms and burials in their respective parishes, for different periods, from ten to forty years, in many of which both the ages and sexes were distinguished; and from about two-thirds of them he obtained also the numbers of marriages and families actually subsisting; also the number of souls, "or at least of communicants," in their parishes: but neither the ages nor sexes were distinguished in any of the enumerations of the living.
This performance does much credit both to the author's industry and judgment, but it has also material defects. He gave upwards of fifty tables, by which he intended to show the probabilities and expectations of life till five years of age, and at every fifth year after that, in different parishes. Mortality, Human.
Mortality, and places, under various circumstances of soil and situation, and for people of different habits and occupations; also for the two sexes separately. These must have cost him a good deal of labour, and would have been extremely valuable had they been correct; but, unfortunately, he did not understand the construction of such tables, and they are not to be depended upon. He also took considerable pains to determine the rates of mortality among married and single women, considered separately, and thought he had proved that it was less among the married; but the proofs he adduced were not conclusive. Some of his observations on the state of the population, and the plans he recommended for increasing it, also show, that he did not understand the principle on which its progress depends.
It is with much reluctance that we make, on so respectable an author, remarks which apply equally to almost all his predecessors in these inquiries; but this we consider to be rendered necessary, by the Memoir generally, and the Tables in particular, having been praised for their extreme accuracy, in a very good abridgment of them, inserted in the second volume of a book, entitled De Re Rustica, or the Repository, Lond. 1770, 8vo.
The disadvantages of her soil and climate necessarily keep Sweden thinly peopled in comparison with the countries which, in these respects, are more happily circumstanced; and since the year 1748, the state of the population has been an object of anxious solicitude with the government; which, in 1749, established what, in this country, would probably be called a Board of Population, but is there denominated Tabell-Värket, that is, Table-Establishment, for reducing into convenient forms the extracts from the parish registers, and the returns from the magistrates of the numbers of the people, which the governors of the different provinces are required to state to the commissioners appointed for these purposes. The extracts from the registers are made and transmitted annually, but the enumerations only once in three years.
Printed forms, with proper blanks, distinguishing the ages and sexes, both of the living and the dead, with the diseases the deaths were occasioned by, are distributed throughout the country, to enable the people to make these returns correctly and uniformly; and the information thus acquired, respecting the state of population and mortality, is much more correct and satisfactory than what has been obtained in any other place of considerable extent; but from causes which we have not room to explain here, the results were not laid before the public until some years after the returns were made.
M. Wargentin who was one of the Royal Commissioners of the Tabell-Värket, inserted in the Transactions of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Stockholm for the years 1754 and 1755, six papers on the usefulness of annual registers of births and deaths in a country; which, like all his other productions, were written with much judgment and modesty; but, to illustrate the subject, he was generally under the necessity of borrowing materials from the writings of others; as, at that time, he was only in possession of the results of complete Swedish returns for the years 1749 and 1750. In the same Transactions for the year 1766, he inserted a paper on the mortality in Sweden, in which he gave Tables exhibiting the number of the Living of each sex in each of the following intervals of age—between birth and one year completed, between one and three, between three and five, and then in each consecutive period of five years of age till ninety, the last including all those above ninety years of age; at the three enumerations of the people which were made in the years 1737, 1760, and 1663; with the annual average number of still-born children and of those born alive, also the number of deaths that took place in each of those intervals of age, during each of the periods of three years, which ended at the times of these three enumerations, the sexes being always distinguished. These particulars he gave both for all Sweden and Finland, and for Stockholm separately; with other interesting results of the registers and enumerations, and many judicious observations on them. The ages of the living at the different enumerations, and those at which the deaths took place in all the subsequent publications of them, have been given for the intervals of age stated above.
This paper of M. Wargentin is more valuable than all that had previously been published on the subject; it is also to be found in the French abridgment of the Stockholm Transactions, in the eleventh volume of the Collection Académique (partie étrangère), which abridgment was also published separately in 4to at Paris, in 1772.
Condorcet in his Eloge of M. Wargentin states, that he had collected the results of his labours as Commissioner of the Tabell-Värket in a great work which he had not time to publish; but in that statement, there is probably some mistake. In the Stockholm Transactions for the first quarter of the year 1801, M. Nicander informs us, that M. Wargentin at his death, left in manuscript a continuation of the observations published in 1766, consisting of four statements similar to those just mentioned; the first for the years 1765, 1766, and 1767, the second for the two following years, the third for the year 1772 alone, and the fourth for 1774, 1775, and 1776; and having taken the mean of all the seven, he sent it a little before his death to Dr. Price, who published it in the fourth edition of his Observations on Reverionary Payments," which appeared in 1783, the same year in which Wargentin died.
In 1767, Dr. Short published, in quarto, A Comparative History of the Increase and Decrease of Mankind, in which the tables are printed more intelligibly, and there is more information respecting foreign Bills of Mortality, than in his New Observations.
The first edition of Dr. Price's Observations on Reverionary Payments appeared in 1771, and contained Observations on the expectations of lives, the increase of mankind, the number of inhabitants in London, and the influence of great towns on health and population," which had been published in the Philosophical Transactions for 1769, and added considerably to the information on those subjects which had been previously before the public; also observations on the proper methods of constructing tables of mortality.
In the Philosophical Transactions for the years 1774 and Drs. Hay-775, were inserted two excellent papers by Dr. Haygarth and of Chester, in which he gave the Bills of Mortality for that Percival city, for the years 1772 and 1773 respectively, in a form calculated to exhibit, at one view, the most useful and interesting information such bills can afford without calculation, and presenting to the calculator data that are essential to the solution of the most important questions respecting the state of the population. Three papers by Dr. Percival (also of considerable merit) appeared in the same Transactions about this time, relating principally to the population of Manchester and its neighbourhood.
The second part of Dr. Moehsen's Collection of Observations for the better illustration of the great usefulness and value of Inoculation for the Small-pox, was published in 1775; in which he gave a good historical account of
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1 Sammlung merkwürdiger Erfahrungen die dem Werth und grossen Nutzen der Pocken-insoculation. Erstes Stück, Labeck 1774; Zweites und Drittes Stück, Berlin und Leipzig 1775. The third part, however, appears never to have been published, though stated in the title, and no doubt intended to accompany the second. Indeed at the end of the second part he gave notice that his remarks on his third table would be continued, and explanations of the remaining ones would be given, in the following part; which, however, is wanting. Mortality, the first institution of Registers of Births, Marriages, and Bills of Deaths, and of their gradual progress and useful applications down to his time; also twenty-six tables derived from the Berlin Bills of Mortality for a period of seventeen years, commencing with 1758, and ending with 1774.
For each of the seventeen years he gave in the text what he called a Year Table, shewing for that year the number of deaths by small-pox, which took place during each month, in each of the first five years of age separately, and also in each interval of five years of age above that, with the number during the whole year in each of those intervals of age, the total number in each month of the year and also in the whole year; so far without distinction of sex or condition. But he added in each of those tables, the distribution of the number who died in the year by the small-pox into the civil and military population, shewing for each of these classes how many of each sex were children and how many adults, taking the age of fifteen years as the limit between them, without noticing the month or the interval of age in which the deaths took place. And in an 18th table he gave the same information for the first half of the year 1775. At page 152, he gave a table shewing the number of deaths in Berlin during each of those seventeen years, from all causes without distinction, but distinguishing the civil from the military population, and the sexes in each case. Amongst these deaths the still-born are included, which it is important to notice here, as he did not mention it. At the end he gave seven other which he called Principal Tables; the three first are summaries of his Year Tables; the first exhibiting at one view the number of deaths by small-pox in each month of each of the seventeen years, also those in each month during the whole term, with the whole number during each year, and the total during the whole term of seventeen years, without distinction of age, sex, or condition. The second shews the number of those deaths in each year, and the sum of them in all the years, distinguishing the sexes, the civil from the military population, and children from adults. The third shews the number of those deaths in each interval of age that took place in each year, and also during the whole term, without noticing the particulars given in the two first tables. In the fourth table he gave the numbers of male and female children separately which were born in each month of each of the seventeen years, with the total number in each year, and the total number born in each month during the whole term of seventeen years, but without mentioning whether the still-born were included in these statements or not; it seems probable that they were, as he included them in the deaths.
Taking the numbers of births and deaths, as stated by Dr. Moehsen, without attending to the still-born, it appears that
| Males | Females | Both sexes | |-------|---------|------------| | 33,916 | 31,718 | 65,633 | | 30,473 | 30,153 | 60,626 | | 11,166 | 9,341 | 20,507 | | Total | 41,639 | 39,494 | 81,133 |
Exceeding the births by 7,724 7,776 15,500
His fifth table shews how many children were still-born, and how many died during each of those seventeen years, also during the whole term, by each of thirteen different diseases which are the most prevalent amongst "children and others," but without distinction of age, sex, or condition, and without including the small-pox, respecting which the same information was given both in his first and third tables; that makes fourteen, of which he has given this information. But two of them, Rittlen and Masern, appear to be only different forms or varieties of what we denominate measles, whilst of some other heads or denominations in the Berlin bills, probably each included several distinct diseases; as disease of the chest and consumption, both distinguished from phthisis (Scrofula) which is given separately. But these Dr. Moehsen could only give as he found them in the Weekly Bills of Mortality, from which he states that he formed his Tables.
His sixth table shews the number of suicides that took place in each month of those seventeen years, and also during the whole term, in the five different divisions following, viz., by shooting, hanging, cutting the throat, drowning, and otherwise; also the number of deaths by accidents in forty-nine different ways, the whole number being 447; distinguishing the civil from the military population, males from females, and children from adults, but without stating the months in which the deaths took place. Amongst those causes of death, except drowning and sudden death, the numbers by which were ninety and one hundred and thirty-one respectively, the greatest number, thirty-nine, was of those who died by hunger and misery in the year 1772. Always excluding the still-born; the number of deaths in 1772 was 8314, whilst the annual average number of the remaining sixteen years was only 4339; so that in 1772 the mortality was nearly twice as great as on the average of the other sixteen years of the term, which shews how small a number of deaths is imputed in the bills to hunger and destitution in comparison with those which, although ascribed to other causes, were hastened and chiefly produced by want and misery.
The seventh table shews for the year 1774 alone, the number of the still-born, the number of deaths by unknown diseases, and the number of them produced by each of seventy-three different diseases and casualties according to the Berlin Weekly Bills, which took place in each month of that year and during the whole year, with distinction of the civil from the military population, males from females, and children from adults. The whole number of deaths, including the still-born in that year, was 4401; still-born 259, deaths by unknown diseases 276.
Dr. Moehsen states that the diseases were first introduced into the Bills of Mortality at Berlin in the year 1721. The sexton of every parish had some years before been ordered to leave at the senate-house, at the end of every week, a list of the names of all who had been baptized, married, or buried during that week; and in the case of the buried, the age at which, and the disease by which, each death took place, were also to be stated. But these orders were not properly attended to until 1733; from that year he made and preserved abridged extracts from them until 1753, when these were destroyed by fire. In 1757, he resumed his labours which we have here given an account of, more minute than in most other cases, but not more so than their value appears to entitle them to, whether for their useful applications or as examples worthy of being followed.
In 1778 was published at Paris, in octavo, the work entitled *Recherches et Considerations sur la Population de la France*, par M. Moheau. This book is agreeably written in a way entirely popular, and will probably be perused with more pleasure by the generality of readers than most others on the subject of population. It contains a great number of tables, for many of which he was indebted to other writers, especially to M. Messance; but he has also given many that are original, derived from the Bills of Mortality and actual enumerations of the people, though without explaining in a satisfactory manner how he obtained his information, which, if it be correct, must have cost great labour. In his preface he says, "il est tel page de ce livre qui a coûté nécessairement deux mois de travail, et un volume de chiffres." The fourth edition of Dr. Price's Observations on Reversionary Payments appeared in 1783, and contained much new and valuable information on these subjects, as has already been stated above, and in the historical introduction to the article Annuities.
In 1786 was published, at Petersburgh, in the Acts of the Academy of Sciences there, for the year 1782, an essay by M. Krafft, on the marriages, births, and burials, at St. Petersburgh, during a period of seventeen years, from 1764 to 1780, preceded by a general exposition of the uses such tables might be applied to, if the observations they record were extended over entire governments in Russia. This paper contains seventeen tables, which show the number of deaths at each age, and by each of the principal diseases, together with the numbers of marriages and baptisms; the numbers in each case, being given for each of the seventeen years separately, as well as for the whole term; and the sexes are always distinguished; as are likewise foreigners from the native Russians.
These tables would have been rendered very valuable, had they been accompanied by statements of the numbers of the living of each sex in the different intervals of age; but for want of this information, it is difficult to apply them to any useful purpose, and many of the inferences M. Krafft has drawn from them are very uncertain.
During a period of nine years, commencing with 1779, and ending with 1787, Dr. Heysham of Carlisle kept accurate registers of the births, and of the deaths at all ages, in the two parishes which comprehend that city and its environs; also the diseases or casualties which the deaths at each age were occasioned by; and the sexes were in all cases distinguished. These excellent registers were kept with great care and skill on the plan of Dr. Haygarth above mentioned, and included all dissenters within the two parishes. Dr. Heysham published them from year to year as they were made, and accompanied them with valuable observations on the state of the weather and diseases in each year. Their value was greatly enhanced by two enumerations of the people within the two parishes, one made in January 1780, the other in December 1787, in both of which the ages were distinguished, but not the sexes of each age, though the totals of each sex were. These documents, printed in convenient forms, with further information respecting them, and many useful tables deduced from them, may be found in Mr. Milne's Treatise on Annuities.
In the third volume of the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, published in 1793, were inserted Observations on the probabilities of the duration of human life, and on the progress of population in the United States of America, contained in a letter from Mr. Barton, which had been read to the Society in March 1791; also a postscript to that letter, read in December following; the returns of an actual enumeration of the people of the United States having been made in the meantime. The information there given from the parish registers is of little value. In the enumerations the sexes were distinguished but not the ages, except the numbers of free white males under and above sixteen; but even that information with regard to the population of America is very interesting, whether we contrast the early with the more recently settled counties, or the whole of the United States with the population of Europe.
M. Wargentin having died in 1783, M. Henrich Nicander was in the following year appointed his successor as astronomer and secretary of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Stockholm; and in 1791 as one of the royal commissioners of the Tabell-Verket, and their secretary. After the death of M. Wargentin, and perhaps for some time before, owing to his infirmities, the Tabell-Verket would appear not to have been duly attended to; no communications of the results having been made to the public for fifteen years after his decease. But other new commissioners were appointed at the same time as M. Nicander, and he commenced the performance of the duties of his office by forming a catalogue of the acts and tables in the archives of the commissioners, when he found so many deficiencies in the returns from different parts of the kingdom, and so little assistance was afforded him, that it was not until the year 1799 that he was enabled to commence the publication of the most important results for the term of twenty-three years ended with 1795, and he continued to insert papers on that subject in the same transactions for the remainder of his life; he died in 1815. The following statement will facilitate reference to those papers, eighteen in number.
| Year | No. of Papers | Stating the results of observations made during the term of | |------|--------------|----------------------------------------------------------| | 1799 | 2 | 23 years. 1773—1795. | | 1800 | 4 | | | 1801 | 2 | | | 1805 | 3 | 8 ... 1796—1803. | | 1809 | 3 | 5 ... 1804—1805. | | 1813 | 2 | 5 ... 1806—1810. | | 1814 | 2 | 2 ... 1811 and 1812. |
The most valuable information contained in these papers is the mean number of persons living of each sex, in each interval of age during a certain number of years, and the annual average number of deaths of persons of each sex in the same intervals of age which took place during the same time; as these data are sufficient for determining the law of mortality for each sex separately, and also for the whole population without distinction of sex. That information M. Nicander has given for all Sweden and Finland in his first paper in the transactions for 1801, both for the whole period of twenty years, 1776—1795, and for each of the four consecutive periods of five years contained in the same term; also derived from these, the proportion of the annual average number of deaths to the mean number of the living of each sex in each interval of age. And in the volume for 1809, (tab. B,) he gave the same information as to the population and mortality during the term of five years ending with 1805. In the volume for 1813, he gave the number of deaths of persons of each sex, which took place in each interval of age during every one of the five years, 1806—1810; also the number of living persons of each sex in each interval of age at the end of the year 1810. In the volume for 1814, he gave the number of deaths of persons of each sex in each interval of age which took place in each of the two years 1811 and 1812. And in all cases the numbers born alive and still-born of each sex were also given separately, but the still-born were never included among the deaths.
Sweden having lost Finland by the war with Russia in 1808, the observations recorded by M. Nicander in the volumes of the Stockholm Transactions for 1813 and 1814, were made in Sweden alone. The operations of the Tabell-Verket never extended to Swedish Pomerania, the Isle of Rugen, or the town of Wismar.
In the sixth and last paper of M. Wargentin, in the Stockholm Transactions for 1755, he gave a table shewing the proportion of the whole number of deaths produced by each of about thirty of the principal diseases; in all Sweden, in Stockholm alone, within the London bills of mortality, and in Berlin. But at that time complete returns from the whole of Sweden had only been received for the two years 1749 and 1750; and from Stockholm for the five years 1749—1753. Forty-six years from that time had elapsed without anything further having been published on the mortality from different diseases in Sweden, when M. Mortality, Nicander resumed it in his second paper in the Stockholm Bills of Transactions for 1801, where, in table T, he gave for each of the twenty-one years 1775–1795, the number of deaths produced by each of thirty-seven different diseases, besides these four other causes, child-bearing, the infirmities of age, unknown diseases, accidents and other violent deaths; with the annual average number by each cause, and the proportionate number produced by each cause, out of a total number of 10,000 deaths.
In table U he gave for each diocese in the kingdom, for Stockholm and for Carlstena, each separately, also for the whole of the kingdom, the annual average number of deaths during the same period of twenty-one years, produced by each of the causes above mentioned, without distinction of the sexes, except for the whole kingdom taken together; for which the average was given from each cause for males and females separately, and also for the whole population, without distinction of sex. M. Nicander continued his papers on the mortality produced by different diseases in Sweden, in the same Transactions for the years 1805, 1809, 1813, and 1814, which appears in the tabular statement of his papers given above, for the term of years there set against their respective dates of publication. But in these four papers, the mortality produced by several kindred diseases taken together was given, without distinguishing that which was produced by each disease separately. In his paper published in 1809, besides the number of deaths produced in each of the five years 1801–1805, by each disease or class of diseases, the annual average number produced by each, in every month during the same term, was given, so as to show the effects of the seasons in increasing or diminishing the mortality from each.
M. Nicander's papers contain much valuable information which, not coming within the scope of this article, it may suffice merely to mention here. Besides the statements above mentioned, of the births and deaths in the whole of the kingdom taken together, the numbers of them which took place in the city of Stockholm, and in each of the län or governments the country is divided into, are given separately for the period between each two consecutive enumerations of the people, with the excess or defect of the births in each case, as compared with the deaths; and the difference is compared with the increase or decrease of the population in the same period, determined by actual enumerations at its extremities. The number of marriages contracted, and the number dissolved by death during given periods, are also stated; with the number of pregnant women delivered in each interval of five years of age, from fifteen to fifty, and those above fifty; the number of those women who were married, and who were single; the numbers of double, triple, and quadruple births, distinguishing those born alive from the still-born, the legitimate from the illegitimate, and males from females. In the enumerations, the number of married persons of each sex, the numbers of widowers and widows, and the numbers unmarried above fifteen years of age, of each sex; also the number of children of each sex under that age, were given.
The numbers of the people, classed according to their ranks, conditions, and employments, were stated, with distinction of the sexes, and the number of children vaccinated in each year, from 1804. In the volume for 1813, the number of families in each of the four following classes was given:—1. the opulent; 2. other persons of property; 3. those subsisting by their labour; 4. the destitute poor; which consisted of two persons, from two to five, from five to ten, from ten to fifteen, and of more than fifteen persons; with the whole number of families of each of these five magnitudes, and also the whole number of families of each class or condition. In addition to these, tables were given for 1802, and the subsequent years, shewing how many Swedish tons were sown of each kind of grain, also of pease, and of potatoes put into the ground, with the produce derived from each; the quantity of live stock of each kind; and the quantity of land under cultivation for each government of the kingdom separately.
Some of the most valuable parts of these papers of M. Nicander, with deductions from them, will be found under the second section of this article.
After the death of M. Nicander, which took place in 1815, no reports on the state of the population and mortality were inserted in the Stockholm Transactions, where they had always appeared previously; and as books, or any information concerning them, can hardly ever be obtained from Sweden through the London booksellers, it was not till the summer of 1836 that the author of this article learnt from Professor Nilsson of Lund, who was then in London, in what way they had been published; and to that gentleman and Mr. Charles Tottie, consul-general in London for Sweden and Norway, he is indebted for a manuscript copy of the 1st, 2d, and 3d tables, at the end of this article, which give the most important information on the subject; their authenticity he considers to be sufficiently guaranteed, by his having received them through Mr. Tottie, from M. John Ad. Leyonmarck, the successor of M. Nicander, as the secretary to the Tabell-Verket, or Registry Commission; also by comparing them with the printed tables under mentioned.
The principal printed documents on the progress of population in Sweden, since the death of M. Nicander, which the author has yet succeeded in obtaining are the following:—
1. An oblong folio pamphlet, consisting of forty leaves, (each twenty-one inches by eighteen), and containing forty-two lithograph tables, most of the pages being very much crowded with small figures, shewing all the particulars above stated with respect to M. Nicander's tables, not only for the whole of Sweden, but also for the city of Stockholm, and each of the län or governments separately, which the kingdom is divided into, for the five years 1821–1825. The number in each of the usual divisions of age, at the enumeration of 1825, is given, with distinction of the sexes, and of the country people from those residing in towns. The following were the numbers for the whole of the kingdom:
| | Males | Females | Both sexes | |----------------|---------|---------|------------| | Country people | 1,302,989 | 1,287,984 | 2,490,973 | | Inhabitants of towns | 129,981 | 150,298 | 280,279 | | Total | 1,332,970 | 1,438,282 | 2,771,252 |
The numbers of the people in that year, classified according to rank or condition, profession or occupation, are also given. And the number of deaths in each of the five years (1821–1825) by childbirth, also those of each sex separately, by eleven different diseases, including the principal of those prevailing among children, and those by seven different kinds of violent deaths or casualties, are stated for the city of Stockholm, and each län in the kingdom separately.
For that city, and each of those län separately, the numbers of the people in 1805 and 1810, without distinction of age or sex; and the numbers in 1815, 1820, and 1825, both with and without that distinction are given; with the numbers of births and deaths during the two quinquennial periods 1816–1820, and 1821–1825. The divisions are indeed much more minute than these; the population of the city of Stockholm is given for nine different districts separately, and the births and deaths for twenty; this arises from the population being divided into those districts for the purposes of taxation, and the twenty others are the different congregations or places of worship, where the registers of births, deaths, and marriages, are kept. But every län in the kingdom being divided into several districts, and each district into its separate parishes; the particulars above mentioned, are Mortality, given for each parish separately, and also the sum of those Bills of Death in each district, which shows the same things for it.
This is a very imperfect statement of the contents of these valuable tables, but sufficient it is hoped, to show those who take interest in such subjects, that they are worth being consulted and studied. The title is as follows: The Humble Report of the Royal Registry Commissioners to his Royal Majesty, on the Proportions of the Births and Deaths during the years 1821-1825, to the Population of the Kingdom in the last mentioned year; also on the observed Increase of the population of the Kingdom, during the last elapsed compared with the next preceding Decennium. Dated the 10th of May 1828. Printed by the gracious command of his Royal Majesty.
2. A quarto of sixty pages, with the same title, containing an abstract of the above, printed with types in the usual way, and observations and remarks which were absent from the larger tables. In it, the results of the observations made in that quinquennium (1821-1825) are compared with those of the preceding, by placing the corresponding numbers on the same line; those of the next preceding quinquennium (1816-1820) on the left; and those of the present (1821-1825) on the right of the page, with the explanation of their import between them.
These contain almost all the more important information in the larger tables, at least to persons residing out of Sweden, and are much more convenient to use. But this is defective in giving only the numbers of violent or sudden deaths, and those without distinction of sex, with hardly any information as to the numbers by different diseases, except stating in what parts of the country they produced the greatest mortality in different years.
3. A similar quarto of seventy-four pages for the quinquennium 1826-1830, with a similar title, was in 1833, handsomely printed with much larger and more beautiful types, especially the figures, which is important. The contents of the tables in possession of the Commissioners, twenty-five in number, are here stated, and then very satisfactory extracts from them are given. The number of deaths from childbirth and twelve different diseases are given; for the preceding quinquennium, the annual averages only; but for this, 1826-1830, they are stated for each year separately; but the annual average only for violent deaths, casualties, and unknown causes. As each of these gives the results of the preceding quinquennium, the two together give them for fifteen years, 1816-1830; and M. Nicander's papers in the Stockholm Transactions, gave the observations to the end of 1812; those for the years 1811 and 1812 being contained in the volume for 1814. So that only the observations for the three years, 1813, 1814, and 1815, are wanting to complete the series; and the most important parts of these and others are contained in the tables above mentioned, which are given at the end of this article. Whether two other quartos similar to those above mentioned, were published, with the observations made in the two preceding quinquennia, 1811-1815, and 1816-1820, the author had not been able to ascertain when this article was printing, (in February 1837;) nor whether any other large folio tables, similar to those above mentioned, have been published; but it is probable there have not; for in the German translation of the second edition of Forsell's Statistics of Sweden, by the Rev. A. G. F. Freese, preacher to the royal court of Sweden, and rector of the German National Lyceum at Stockholm, (8vo, Lubeck 1835,) it is stated in a note at page sixty-seven, on entering upon the subject of the Swedish tables, that they are often quoted by foreign authors, and that the very large and instructive tables published in 1829, Mortality, deserve much attention. There can be no doubt that these were the tables ordered by the king to be printed in 1828; although they might not have been published before 1829. Had there been any others of the kind, those probably would not have been so noticed, and as the translator must have had the best information on the subject, the obvious inference is, that no others existed in 1835.
4. A folio pamphlet of three sheets extracted from the Tabell-Verket, showing the number of persons carried off by epidemic cholera in Sweden in the year 1834. It contains five tables, but we shall only notice the first and most important of them here; it shows the number of deaths which were produced by that disease in the year 1834,—in every lin in the kingdom, and in every town and every sub-deanery in each lin, in each of the usual intervals of age till twenty-five, those between twenty-five and fifty, and the number above fifty years of age; also the number in each month, without distinction of age. The estimated number of the people in each place at the commencement of that year, and the proportion of them who died of the disease are also given, the sexes being distinguished throughout. This appears to be the first publication of the number of deaths in Sweden classed according to the ages of the deceased, as well as, and together with, the causes of death. For their assistance in procuring the last mentioned and other valuable books from Sweden, the author makes his grateful acknowledgments to Mr. George Warde Norman, and Mr. H. James Prescott; also to Mr. Norman, for a manuscript table showing the number of children of each sex born alive, and the number of the still-born, without distinction of sex; with the number of deaths of persons of each sex, which took place in each of the intervals of age there mentioned, in every one of the ten years 1824-1833, in the kingdom of Norway, the authenticity of which, that gentleman has no doubt of; and therefore, neither has the author of this. In the fourth table at the end of this article, the total of those numbers for the whole term of ten years are given.
It is gratifying to see this table from Norway, so similar to the excellent form of the Swedish. In every point in which they differ, the Swedish is entitled to preference; especially in the smaller intervals of age, in which the numbers of children are given in the Swedish; and it is to be regretted, that in giving the numbers of the still-born, the sexes were not kept distinct; as the great excess of still-born males above still-born females, is an interesting subject of inquiry. It is much to be desired that these should be continued in Norway, and that periodical enumerations of the people on the Swedish plan should also be made regularly. But the author has not yet succeeded in his endeavours to ascertain whether those have been made, or are intended or not.
In the year 1800 was published, at Paris, in octavo, under the title of Essai de Statistique, a memoir by J. A. Mourgue, on the births, marriages, and deaths, that took place in Montpellier during a period of twenty-one years, ending with 1792, with the ages at which the deaths happened, the sexes are also distinguished, and the population of the place appears to have been nearly stationary. The tables and observations of M. Mourgue appear to be more valuable than any others relative to the population of France, that had previously been published, except those of M. Deparcieux, which related only to select orders of the people. This memoir was read at a meeting of the French National Institute in 1795, and printed in the Mem. des Sav. Etr. an. 14. Mortality. An enumeration of the people in Spain was made by royal authority in the years 1768 and 1769, and again in 1787; a minute account of this last was printed at Madrid, showing for each province separately, the numbers of parishes, cities, towns, villages, &c. &c. with the number of people in each class according to their ranks, professions, occupations, &c. and the monastic orders of both sexes were particularly distinguished: to these was prefixed a summary of the census of 1768 and 1769. In these two enumerations, the ages of the people were not distinguished with sufficient minuteness; they only showed how many were under seven, between seven and sixteen, sixteen and twenty-five, twenty-five and forty, forty and fifty, and above fifty. In both enumerations, together with the ages, the distinction of the sexes was given; in the first, the married were only distinguished from the single; but that of 1787 showed how many of each sex, and in each interval of age, were in the states of celibacy, marriage, and widowhood.
A third enumeration of the people in Spain and the Spanish possessions in Europe and Africa, including the Canary Islands, was made in 1797; and a full account of it, occupying nearly fifty large tables, was printed at Madrid in 1801. The distinction of the ages in this enumeration was still not sufficiently minute; under forty it was the same as in the two preceding; but after that age, the number of the living in each interval of ten years to one hundred was given, and the number above one hundred.
No information from the parish registers in Spain was given in any of these cases; although satisfactory extracts from them all, distinguishing the ages and sexes of the deceased, or even from those only which could be most depended upon, during the ten years that intervened between the two last enumerations, would have rendered the results of these incomparably more valuable, provided that the population of the places for which correct registers were given, could be distinguished from the rest. Those to whom the superintendence of these measures were entrusted in Spain, seem to have been well aware of this, and to have actually entered upon the formation of these necessary supplements to the enumerations, as appears by the following passage extracted from the introduction to the printed statement of the last census:
"Interin que se forman las tablas necrológicas, las de nacidos y casados, en que entiende el ministerio de Estado, y que son muy útiles para valuar casi geométricamente el total de la población del Reyno, debemos contentarnos con las noticias que nos proporcionen los censos ejecutados por el método que el presente." But these tables of births, deaths, and marriages, have not yet (in the year 1836) been published, neither does it appear probable that they were ever formed.
In 1801 were published, in quarto, Observations on the Increase and decrease of Different Diseases, and particularly of the Plague, by William Heberden, junior, M.D. F.R.S., containing some tables, chiefly deduced from the London bills. In the advertisement prefixed to this valuable tract, we are informed that it had been intended to be subjoined to a new edition of the Bills of Mortality; which edition, however, was not published. We are also indebted to the same ingenious physician for other interesting observations on the mortality in London, inserted in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (for 1796,) and in those of the London College of Physicians, vol. iv.
In the same year (1801) was published another valuable work, entitled, Reports on the Diseases in London, particu-
Dr. Bateman commenced a series of similar observations and reports on the diseases of London with September 1804, which he continued till the end of August 1816. The subjects of those reports were, the cases that occurred at the Public Dispensary in London, in which he was a physician; they were first published quarterly in the Edinburgh Medical and Physical Journal, but the author collected them into a separate octavo volume, which he published in 1819, with an introduction, in which he gave a Historical Survey of the Diseases of London.
All of the three works last mentioned, are very interesting and instructive; but it would not be consistent with the objects of this article, to notice them further here.
By art. 1, sect. 2, of the constitution of the United States of America, it was provided that the representatives and direct taxes should be apportioned amongst the several states which should be included within the union according to their respective numbers. The first actual enumeration to be made within three years after the first meeting of the Congress of the states, and within every subsequent term of ten years, in such manner as they should by law direct. In consequence of this, five enumerations of the inhabitants of the United States have been made, viz. in 1790, 1800, 1810, 1820, and 1830; statements of the first four are given in the American Almanac for 1832, and of the last in the same Almanac for 1833. In the first, as was stated above, no attention was paid to the ages, except the distinction of the numbers of free white males under and above sixteen years of age. In the enumerations of 1800, 1810, and 1820, the numbers of free white persons of each sex in five different intervals of age were ascertained; but three of the intervals were much too long to admit of the enumerations being available for determining the law of mortality; the first of those long intervals being all under ten years of age; the second, those between twenty-six and forty-five years; and the third, all above that age. Of these three enumerations, it was in that of 1820 only, that the free coloured persons and the slaves were classified according to their ages and sexes; and the intervals of age into which they were distributed, were longer than those for the free whites.
In 1830, the numbers of free white persons of each sex, in thirteen different intervals of age were determined; the four divisions under twenty years of age being of five years each; the eight between twenty and a hundred, of ten years each; and the thirteenth division included those of a hundred years of age, and upwards. The numbers of each sex, of free coloured persons, and of slaves separately of each sex, in each of the following divisions of age, were ascertained. Between 0 and 10, 10 and 24, 24 and 36, 36 and 55, 55 and 100, and above 100. These particulars were given for each state and territory separately, and also the totals for the whole of the United States. Statements of all the five enumerations from that of 1790 to that of 1830, both inclusive, may be seen in the American Almanac for the year 1832. That of 1830, with the ages of the living for each state and territory will be found in the same Almanac for 1833. No general returns of the numbers of births, marriages, and deaths, appear to have been required or made throughout the United States; and previous to the
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1 Dr. Seybert, in his Statistical Annals of the United States of America, published in 1818, (p. 17) makes the following statement: "The United States of America alone require an actual enumeration of the inhabitants to be made at regular intervals; as far as our knowledge extends, no other instance can be furnished from the history of mankind; our practice is worthy of being followed by other nations." And a statement to the same effect is made in the American Almanac for the year 1832, (p. 156) by which it would appear, that the writers were not aware of Sweden having set a still better example of that kind more than thirty years before. Mortality, Human.
In the city and liberties of Philadelphia more attention appears to have been paid to these subjects than in almost any other part of the United States. In the first number of the American Journal of the Medical Sciences, published at Philadelphia in November 1827, in octavo, there is an excellent article (the 8th), entitled, Medical Statistics: being a series of Tables, showing the Mortality in Philadelphia, and its immediate causes, during a period of twenty years, by Gouverneur Emerson, M.D. Dr. Emerson states, that the subject of the diseases and mortality of Philadelphia, was first made one of regular record in the year 1807, through the influence and exertions of Professor James, and that "their authenticity may be regarded as resting on very solid grounds." From authority vested in the Board of Health, this municipal power makes it obligatory upon physicians to give certificates designating the name, age, and sex, of all who die under their care; and sextons are bound by still heavier penalties, not to permit the interment of any dead body, until such certificate is obtained, which he returns to the health office on the last day of every week, for publication. The accuracy with which the diseases are designated in these certificates, rests chiefly upon the general intelligence of the medical profession in that city, the members of which are very much in the practice of testing their pathological opinions by post-mortem examinations. For the purpose of ascertaining the number born, the various practitioners of midwifery are required to render an account at the health office of all births. With regard, however, to this department, there is some reason to suspect a deficiency in the returns, especially from the outskirts of the city and Liberties. But the registry of the dead has, for the most part, been kept with a care and fidelity creditable to those who have had its superintendence."
Dr. Emerson after making some general observations on the topography and climate of Philadelphia, proceeds with his observations on the eleven valuable tables which are inserted at the end of the article.
The first shows the results for each calendar month of thermometrical observations made at Philadelphia, during the term of ten years, which commenced with March 1811, and ended with February 1820. The second is an abstract of the census of the city and county of Philadelphia, taken by order of the general government in 1820.
All the observations on the Mortality were made within the period of twenty years, which commenced with 1807 and ended with 1826; the still-born being always, as they should be, given separately, and not included amongst the deaths; except in Table IV., which shows the number of deaths in each month of each of the twenty years; the Board of Health having found it impracticable to make an accurate monthly estimate of them for deduction.
In the number stated in the Philadelphia bills to be still-born, the abortions are included. The fifth and eleventh of these tables are the most valuable. In the fifth are stated the numbers of deaths from the principal diseases during the whole period of twenty years in the following intervals of age, viz. between birth and one year completed, between one and two years, between two and five, between five and ten; then in each interval of ten years of age to a hundred and twenty; fifty-five deaths having happened between the ages of a hundred and a hundred and ten, and six between a hundred and ten and a hundred and twenty. After the columns set apart for those fifteen different intervals of age, in a sixteenth the number of deaths produced by each disease at ages not ascertained, is given; and in the seventeenth and last column, the total number of deaths produced by each of those diseases. The total number of diseases in the table is sixty-six, and the number of causes of death, old age being included, is sixty-seven.
A few cases of deaths occasioned by accidents and diseases of vague character, Dr. Emerson omitted, as tending rather to perplex than to elucidate the subject; and adopted the alphabetical arrangement in this table, as the most convenient.
The total number of deaths registered during the term of twenty years was 53,004, whilst the number included in this fifth table was 50,614; so that 2,390 were excluded for the reason just stated.
Dr. Emerson's other tables and his observations on the whole of them, will be found well worth the attention of those who take interest in the subject.
In Hazard's Register of Pennsylvania for July 30, 1831, (No. 5, vol. vii.) there is an elaborate paper entitled, Comparative Views of the population of the city and county of Philadelphia, from the time of the first census in 1790, till that of the last in 1830; in which the number of white persons of each sex in that city and county at the time of the census of 1830, in each of the thirteen intervals of age, stated above to have been adopted throughout the United States at that census, is given; and the same information is given as to the coloured population at that time, but distributed into the six intervals of age only, above stated to have been adopted for them. The number of whites was 173,345; of coloured persons, 15,595; total, 188,940.
A statement of the deaths which took place within the Bills of Mortality during the term of ten years 1821-1830, is also given for the whole population without distinction of colour or sex, and distributed into the following sixteen intervals of age in which they happened, viz. under one year, between one and two, between two and five, then in each of the three intervals of five years each to twenty, and the remaining ten intervals of ten years each between twenty and a hundred and twenty; thirty-two persons having died between a hundred and a hundred and ten years of age, and five between a hundred and ten and a hundred and twenty. The whole number of those deaths, which did not include the still-born, was 37,914.
The number of births of each sex in each of the ten years 1821-1830, is also given, including the still-born, but without distinction of colour; and the number of still-born for each year separately, but without distinction either of colour or sex.
The number of deaths in each of the ten years is stated separately, both with and without distinction of sex, but always without distinction of age; and it is only where the whole number of deaths of both sexes without distinction, in each of the ten years is stated, that the division of it into
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1 In consequence of the notice which was taken in the first edition of this article, published in the Supplement to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, in June 1817, of the enumerations of the people, and the published extracts from the parish registers in the United States, with some suggestions for improving the best of them, those of Philadelphia, and increasing their usefulness, John Vaughan, Esq., the Librarian of the American Philosophical Society, had the goodness to communicate to the author in June 1818, most of the information given above, and the state of things down to that time, both in the United States generally, and in Philadelphia in particular; with eight of the annual statements (all he could procure and part with,) of the Board of Health in Philadelphia, showing the number of deaths at every age by each disease or other cause, in that city and its liberties; and several American newspapers, showing the number of deaths in each of the same intervals of age, the number in each month of the year, and the number of deaths by each cause, without in this last case, stating at what ages they happened, in Baltimore, Boston, Charleston, New York, Philadelphia, Salem, and Washington; for which the author feels it incumbent upon him to acknowledge his obligations, and express his gratitude in this place. Mortality, the numbers of white and coloured persons is given; in these numbers of deaths without distinction of age, the still-born are included. So that these documents do not enable us to determine out of how many persons of each sex, one died annually during the ten years 1821-1830.
Taking the limits of the Bills of Mortality from Dr. Emerson's second table, where he stated the wards and districts from which the returns of interments were made, and the population of each at the census in 1820, amounting in all to 121,980; and assuming the limits of the bills to have been the same in 1830, the population within them at the census of that year, was, according to Hazard's Register, 171,212; and the mean number of the people during the intervening ten years, appears to have been 146,596. The number of deaths in the same time, exclusive of the still-born, was, according to the statement with the ages, 37,914; according to that without the ages, 37,814; taking 37,864, the mean between these for the true number, we find that there died annually on an average of those ten years, one person for every (387165 or nearly) thirty-nine in the whole population. The number of persons in the city and county at the census of 1820 was 137,097, that at 1830, 188,961, mean number during the intervening ten years, 163,029.
The following statement of the progress of population in the city alone of Philadelphia, appears to be sufficiently interesting to deserve a place here.
| In the year | No. of the people | No. of square feet for each person | No. of persons to a sq. mile | |------------|------------------|-----------------------------------|-----------------------------| | 1790 | 28,522 | 1755 | 15,885 | | 1800 | 41,220 | 1216 | 22,926 | | 1810 | 53,722 | 933 | 29,880 | | 1820 | 63,802 | 786 | 35,469 | | 1830 | 80,458 | 623 | 44,749 |
The three first columns are taken from the article above mentioned in Hazard's Register; but since the numbers in the third are proportional to the rarity of the population at the five enumerations, those in the fourth have been added, as they measure its density at the times of those enumerations.
The whole population of the city and county of Philadelphia, without distinction of age, sex, or colour, was distributed as follows, at the times of the enumerations in 1820 and 1830.
| In the year | In the year | |------------|------------| | 1820 | 1830 | | In the city | 63,802 | 80,458 | | In the suburbs | 58,178 | 90,754 | | Total within the bills of mortality | 121,980 | 171,212 | | In the rest of the county | 15,117 | 17,749 | | Total within the city and county | 137,097 | 188,961 |
(Hazard's Register, vol. viii. p. 65.)
Here the inhabitants of Blockley, amounting in 1820 to 2655, in 1830 to 3401,
Including the township of Blockley in the limits of the bills according to Dr. Emerson, although in the register it is removed from them and placed in the rest of the county. If the interments in or from Blockley were not included in the bills, the annual average mortality must have been one of 37,9167.
It is much to be regretted that in the census of 1830, the coloured population were not distributed into the same intervals of age as the whites; also that the colours and sexes of those who died within the bills of mortality during the ten years, 1821-1830, were not distinguished in the published statements, as well as the ages. Dr. Emerson was of opinion that the rate of mortality amongst the coloured population was much greater than amongst the whites.
It is equally to be regretted that, while the bills of mortality extended only to the city and suburbs, of which the mean population during the ten years, 1821-1830, was 146,596, the enumeration of that portion of the population of the city and county distributed into the different intervals of age, with distinction of the colours and sexes, was not given separately. For with such documents as are before us, even if the enumeration of 1820 had been made exactly in the same manner as that of 1830; in attempting to determine the rate of mortality in any interval of age, we should only have the means of comparing the annual average number of deaths which took place in that interval within the bills of mortality, with the mean number of the people in the same internal of age in the whole of the city and county. But the mean population within the bills of mortality was only 146,596 while that of the whole city and county was 163,029 that is 16,433 or about one-ninth greater.
The difficulty arising from this would not be great, if the population without the bills were known to be distributed into the different intervals of age in a manner similar to that within them; but there is no doubt of the distribution in the two cases being very dissimilar; for, excluding the still-born both from the numbers of the births and of the deaths, during the ten years ended with 1830.
The total number born within the bills of mortality was 61,945 Total number of deaths in the same time 37,814 Increase of population, within the bills, by procreation 24,131 While the increase from all causes during these ten years, was 49,232 So that the increase by migration must have been 25,101 within the bills of mortality; that is, one twenty-fourth part greater than by procreation. The part of the county without the bills certainly could not have been increased in a like proportion in the same way; therefore the population without the bills must have been much more dense at early ages, and more rare at the advanced ones, in comparison with the population within them, than in proportion to the mean number of the people of all ages, without and within the bills respectively. Whence it is manifest that nothing but enumerations of the people in each interval of age, within the limits of the bills, at each extremity of the period for which the annual deaths at the different periods of life are given, can make either those enumerations or the registers of deaths, available for the most important purposes they can be applied to.
In pursuance of an act of Parliament (41 Geo. III. cap. 15), an enumeration of the people in Great Britain was made in 1801; also returns of the baptisms and burials in England and Wales, during the year 1700, and every tenth year after that till 1780, then for every year to 1800 inclusive, with the number of marriages in each year, from the commencement of 1754 to the end of 1800. Large and clear abstracts of the answers and returns to this act were printed Mortality, Human.
Mortality, by order of the House of Commons in 1802, and occupy Bills of more than one thousand pages folio. In 1811, another act (51 Geo. III. cap. 6) was passed, "for taking an account of the population of Great Britain, and the increase or diminution thereof;" in consequence of which, returns were that year made to Parliament, of the number of persons in every part of Great Britain; also of the numbers of baptisms, burials, and marriages in England and Wales, during each of the preceding ten years; very satisfactory abstracts of these were also printed by order of the House of Commons, in 1812, with some preliminary observations, in which corrections of the preceding returns are given.
The sexes were distinguished both in these enumerations and extracts from the registers, but the ages in none of them; and the proportions of males to females among the living are not to be depended upon, a number of males in the army and navy, which it is difficult to estimate, not being natives of Great Britain, nor usually resident there. The returns of baptisms and burials were also defective, but few registers of Dissenters having been included in them.
These abstracts are, however, with respect to the objects they extend to, more minute and satisfactory, than any other accounts of the same kind that had previously been published; and it was very desirable that such returns should have continued to be made, and abstracts of them to be printed at regular intervals; for nothing is so well calculated to shew the influence of different causes on the prosperity of a nation, as the comparison of the different states of the population, and the rate of its progress or declension under different circumstances; besides, the value of the abstracts, once obtained, will be much enhanced by the publication of others of a similar kind thereafter.
It is much to be regretted, that no information as to the ages of the living, or those at which the deaths took place, was required by either of the acts above referred to, nor any encouragement or facility afforded to those who might be disposed to collect such information; and, consequently, that none was given in the returns.
Without better regulations for the keeping of mortuary registers than those heretofore in force, without such as should extend to dissenters of every denomination, it would probably be better not to require returns of the ages of the deceased from all parts of the kingdom; for defective or inaccurate returns would only mislead; and, not to mention the difficulty and expense of procuring returns of the ages of all the living, they would be comparatively of little use, where those of the dead were wanting.
But if government were to print forms for making returns both of the numbers of the living and of the annual deaths in proper intervals of age, throughout the extent of life; only sending these forms along with those now in use, to such as should apply for them; then persons who take an interest in such inquiries, and have the means of making correct returns, might do so with advantage. And a summary of all of that kind made from different parts of the kingdom, would convey much important information. Returns also, from such places only as were similarly circumstanced, might be collected into as many summaries as there were material varieties in the circumstances; and thus would afford the means of determining the different modifications of the law of mortality, which different circumstances produce. If the diseases that occasioned the deaths were also inserted, the greater prevalence of particular diseases in some circumstances than in others, would be apparent, with their effects, and the probable means of preventing them, or lessening their mortality.
But, the population enumerated must always be precisely that which produces the deaths registered; the grand desideratum being, to determine the number of annual deaths at each age, which takes place among a given number of the living at the same age.
Mr. Milne's Treatise on Annuities and Assurances was published in 1815, and contains clear abstracts of the most important statements of this kind that had been published between Dr. Price's time and the date of its publication; these will, we believe, be found to be much more valuable than any thing of the kind that was extant when that respectable author wrote, whose work had long been referred to for the best information on such subjects.
Since the first publication (in 1817) of what has been stated above respecting the two first enumerations of the people in Great Britain, and the extracts from the parish registers of England and Wales, two other enumerations have been made in 1821 and 1831; and abstracts of the answers and returns under the acts that required them, (1 Geo. IV. cap. 94, and 11 Geo. IV. cap. 30), have been printed by order of the House of Commons, (in 1822 and 1833 respectively). The extracts from the parish registers, shewing in each case the numbers of births, marriages, and burials, returned for each of the ten years next preceding that of the enumeration. The principal difference between the queries put at the two enumerations of 1811 and 1821 was, that in 1811 no inquiry was made as to the ages of the people, while in 1821, after nearly the same questions had, according to the act, been put to the overseers in England, and to the schoolmasters in Scotland, the following instructions as to the ages of the people were given: "If you are of opinion that in making the preceding inquiries, (as to the number of families and persons), the ages of the several individuals can be obtained in a manner satisfactory to yourself; and not inconvenient to the parties, be pleased to state the number of those who are under five years of age," &c. The thirteen intervals of age into which the persons of each sex separately were to be distributed, being these: 4 of 5 years each from birth to 20 years of age; then 8 of 10 years each to 100; the thirteenth including all those above 100 years of age. Thus it was left optional with the returning officer whether this important question should be put, and with the party interrogated, whether it should be answered or not; from which it would appear that this part of the inquiry was not intended to be made with much correctness, and those whose onerous duty it was to put the question in populous places, might easily lighten the burden; accordingly, from such places the ages of a considerable part of the population were not returned. None were obtained from Manchester, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, or Sunderland. The proportion of the ages which were not returned was, in Birmingham, about §§ths, in Leeds, §th, in Bristol, §th of the returned population. In Middlesex, §th, York, east riding, §th, north riding, §th, in Lancashire, §th, in Warwickshire, §d, evidently owing to the large manufacturing towns they contain, especially Birmingham, the population of which is more than a third of that of the county of Warwick. These deficiencies in the returns may reasonably be ascribed to the option which was offered to the overseers, who, however, performed the duty imposed upon them with great good will and attention, as appears by the complete return of ages where the obstacles were not too great.
That the people were not unwilling to state their ages, may be inferred from the complete returns of them from Hull, Liverpool, Portsmouth, Plymouth, and Great Yarmouth, as well as from every city in England, if we mistake not, except London, Canterbury, and Bristol. From the counties of Bedford, Chester, Rutland, and Leicester, nearly the whole were obtained; and from those of Lincoln, Norfolk, Suffolk, and Wilts, the deficiency was only on an aver-
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1 In the Supplement to former editions of this work. 2 For the more recent statistics on mortality, see Appendix to the present article. Mortality, Human.
Mortality, age about one-thirtieth, while from all Wales it was only a forty-second part of the whole.
The following table may throw some light on the influence of large manufacturing towns, migration, and some other circumstances, in producing a more or less complete return of the ages of the people at that enumeration. It being borne in mind that from Glasgow the whole were returned.
Omitting the army, navy, marines, and seamen in registered vessels.
| Both sexes | For every million of each sex, the number whose ages were not returned, was, of | Excess of Females for every 100 males | |------------|---------------------------------|----------------------------------| | | Males | Females | In the whole population. | Among those whose ages were not returned. | | In England | 787 | 123,053 | 130,880 | 7,827 | 5,365 | 6,365 | | Wales | 4164 | 23,776 | 24,240 | 464 | 470 | 1,95 | | England and Wales | 827 | 117,359 | 124,512 | 7,153 | 5,332 | 6,09 | | Scotland | 1531 | 61,016 | 69,139 | 8,123 | 12,85 | 13,31 | | Do., omitting Glasgow | 1423 | 65,556 | 74,431 | 8,875 | 11,55 | 13,54 | | Great Britain | 888 | 108,999 | 116,048 | 7,049 | 6,41 | 6,47 |
With regard to the extracts from the parish registers, the principal difference between the questions put in 1831 and at the three preceding decennial periods of enumeration, was, that in these no inquiry was made as to the ages at which the deaths happened, while in 1831 the officiating minister of every church or chapel was requested to state the ages of the individuals of each sex entered in his burial register, during each of the eighteen years 1813—1830, in consequence of which the ages of 3,938,496 persons buried during those eighteen years were returned, 1,996,195 males, and 1,942,301 females. The number of each sex separately, and of both sexes, who died in each year of age during every one of the eighteen years, in all England and Wales, according to the returns, were given in the preface to the Enumeration Abstract, (pp. 35—42); besides which, a similar table was also given for each county separately, and sometimes for its principal town, at the end of the returns from that county, in the Parish Register Abstract.
Omitting the army, &c., as above mentioned, the whole returned population in 1821 was 11,978,875 persons; but the ages of 10,530,671 only were obtained, the number of persons whose ages were not obtained having been 1,448,204. As the ages withheld were generally those of residents in large manufacturing towns, whilst those returned were from the rest of the population, and a considerable proportion of the former class had migrated from the latter, many of them probably about the age of puberty; there are good reasons for believing that the ages returned and those omitted were not similarly distributed, as to their numbers, into the different periods of life; so that, although the total number omitted be given, they cannot be interpolated in their proper places by calculation or otherwise, among the ages returned.
In the returns of burials at different ages, there are also omissions, which can only be guessed at. Thus it appears that these documents, after all the pains and expense they have cost, do not afford the means of determining the law of mortality, although that undoubtedly is the most important purpose to which enumerations and registers of these kinds can be applied.
The act 6 and 7 Wm. IV., cap. 86, passed in August 1836, is likely to secure satisfactory records of marriages, births, and deaths, in England; but the abortive and still-born should be distinguished from the children born alive, which does not appear to be provided for. They may, indeed, be entered as abortive or still-born, under the cause of death, in the register of burials; if that be done, they should be carefully excluded from the number of deaths, in making extracts or returns, and stated separately. And if, at the future decennial enumerations, the ages of the people be determined with corresponding accuracy, the values both of the enumerations and registers will be greatly enhanced, and the law of mortality, with much other important information, may be derived from them. The insertion of the cause of death, in the register of it, is of itself a great improvement.
As has already been observed in the article Annuities, (in volume iii.), it is much to be regretted that in the population returns of 1831, the people were not classed according to their ages, as in 1821; but without giving any option either to the party by whom or to whom the question on that subject was required to be put, as to putting or answering it. It appears highly probable that there would be no occasion to impose any penalty for refusing to answer that question, or for giving wilfully an incorrect answer; and in the few cases where it might be so given, or altogether withheld, if a memorandum were made of it, the desired information might afterwards be obtained nearly enough from other parties; if it came but within the right interval of age, that would be sufficient. It is true that in the present defective state of the returns of births and deaths, that would not have enabled us to determine the law of mortality in a satisfactory manner; but with the returns of 1821, and those of a similar kind to be made at the future enumerations, it would have been of great use. Indeed it must be obvious to all, that one of the greatest uses of such periodical inquiries into the state of the population, is to ascertain its progress, by comparing the returns at the several successive periods, which can only be done satisfactorily when the same method of proceeding is adhered to at each, or as nearly so as may be consistent with the introduction of improvements into it.
Dr. Robert Watt's Inquiry into the Relative Mortality of the Principal Diseases of Children, and the numbers who died under ten years of age in Glasgow during the thirty years 1783—1812, forming the appendix to his Treatise on Croupous, was published with it, in 8vo. in 1813.
He states, (p. 336,) that, "on inquiring into the state of
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1 These above mentioned are only a few cases, others may be easily found in the Population Abstract. The ages of the inhabitants of London within the walls were very nearly all returned; those of Canterbury were deficient by 4th part of the whole. Mortality, Human.