Report on the vital statistics of the United States : made to the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York / by James Wynne.

  • James Wynne
Date:
1857
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on the vital statistics of the United States : made to the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York / by James Wynne. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    Population Population Years. on first series. on second series. 1850 22,400,000 22,000,000 I860 29,400,000 28,800,000 1870 38,300,000 36,500,000 1880 49,600,000 46,500,000 1890 63,000,000 59,800,000 1900 80,000,000 74,000,000. [Compend. U. 8. Census, 1850,p. 130.] This table is based upon the assumption of an increase of population in a geometrical ratio, without an adequate compensation for those causes which are always operating to increase or diminish this ratio, and which are so variable in their character as to elude all fixed geometrical rules. Could a population be found in which the increase arose solely from births and the decrease of deaths, entirely unaffected by migration, it would be found that the excess of births above that of deaths in each year, would be in a fixed ratio to the number living at the beginning of the year, which progression, with a knowledge of the circumstances affecting the rate of mortality, might be determined; for, if the number of births above that of the deaths, bore an exact ratio to the population living, at any one fixed period, the increase could be measured and its results determined by a pro- cess in geometrical progression. But as there is no country, and probably no part of a country, where the population has remained for any length of time so stationary as to be unaffected by migration, it follows, that in order to make a tolerably near approach to the ratio of increase, the effect of this migration must be taken into consideration; and as it is extremely difficult to determine with any degree of precision, either the numbers or the ages of those who enter or depart, so it is proportionably difficult to fix the rate of increase or decrease for any length of time dependant upon their absence or presence.