An essay on the principle of population, or, a view of its past and present effects on human happiness; with an inquiry into our prospects respecting the future removal or mitigation of the evils which it occasions / By T.R. Malthus ... In two volumes.

  • Malthus, T. R. (Thomas Robert), 1766-1834.
Date:
1809
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An essay on the principle of population, or, a view of its past and present effects on human happiness; with an inquiry into our prospects respecting the future removal or mitigation of the evils which it occasions / By T.R. Malthus ... In two volumes. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    Effects of epidemics on registers Spersed throughout these tables will not of course have the same effects on the marriages and births, as the great plague in the table for Prussia ; but in proportion to their magnitude, their operation will in general be found to be similar. From the regis- ters of many other countries, and particularly of towns, it appears that the visitations of the plague were frequent at the latter end of the 17th and the beginning of the 18th centuries. In contemplating the plagues and sickly seasons which occur in these tables, after a period of rapid increase, it is impossible not to be impressed with the idea that the number of inhabitants had, in these instances, exceeded the food and the accom- modations necessary to preserve them in health.— The mass of the people would, upon this supposi- tion, be obliged to live worse, and a greater num- ber of them would be crowded together in one house ; and these natural causes would evidently contribute to produce sickness, even though the country, absolutely considered, might not be crowded and populous. In a country, even thinly inhabited, if an increase of population take place before more food is raised, and more houses are built, the inliabitants must be distressed for room and subsistence. If in the Highlands of Scotlandy