Remarks on the influence of mental cultivation and mental excitement upon health / With notes by R. Macnish.

  • Amariah Brigham
Date:
1836
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Remarks on the influence of mental cultivation and mental excitement upon health / With notes by R. Macnish. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    117/160 (page 99)
    of the last century was 1 in 20; it is now 1 in 40. That of Glasgow is 1 in 44. 82 In the first half of the j 8th century, the proportion of deaths to births in London, was as 3 to 2; but since 1800, the number of deaths is less than of births, as 12 to 15. Other countries and cities in Europe have likewise improved in the ratio of mortality. In France, in 1780, the deaths annually were 1 in 30; but during the eight years previous to 1824, 1 in 40, or one-fourth less. From the census of the population in 1817, it appears that the average annual difference between the deaths and the births for the eight following years, is nearly 200,000 in favour of the latter.83 Much of this decrease of mortality is no doubt owing to the increase of wealth, which has supplied all classes with the necessaries of life better than formerly ; but as much, I apprehend, is owing to the increase of knowledge, and to the abandonment of vicious habits— puted to some places in the above note. “ In this country, “says Mr. Finlaison, “it is gravely stated, even in Parliament, that the rate of mortality is, in some countries, only 1 in 65, or 8 in 520, a manifest impossibility,because if only 1 in 65 die in a year, the mean duration of life in an infant newly born, is 6H years, therefore, the extreme of life must be near 130 years of age! but the general mean duration of life in England does not in fact exceed 36 years!—R.M.] 82 Hawkins—[Hawkins estimates the mortality of Glasgow too low. Dr. Cleland, a most able and indefatigable statist, who for many years drew up the Population Tables, and Bills of Mor- tality for that city, in a style of elaboration and accuracy which are quite unrivalled in the kingdom, estimated it in 1821, at . in 1831, at39T^(j,—R.M.] 83. Diseours sur les Ameliorations Progressives de la Sante Pub- lique, par I’influence de la civilisation. Par F. Berard.