On the best modes of representing accurately, by statistical returns, the duration of life, and the pressure and progress of the causes of mortality amongst different classes of the community, and amongst the populations of different districts and countries / by Edwin Chadwick.

  • Chadwick, Edwin, 1800-1890.
Date:
[1843?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the best modes of representing accurately, by statistical returns, the duration of life, and the pressure and progress of the causes of mortality amongst different classes of the community, and amongst the populations of different districts and countries / by Edwin Chadwick. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    at that age and upwards, out of which one dies annually. Thus, for ex- ample, the expectation of life at 40 years of age being 25'495 years, the proportion of the living in the place, aged 40 years and upwards, who die annually, is 1 of 25 * 495, or, which is the same, 1000 out of 25,495.” Having of late had occasion to make rather extensive observations on this subject, it appears to be a pubic duty to state, that in no class of persons, in no district or country, and in no tract of time, has the fact hitherto appeared to be in coincidence with these hypotheses; and also that returns of the proportions of deaths to the population, when taken singly, as the exponents of the average duration of life, are often mischievously misleading, exaggerating those chances of life sometimes to the extent of double the real amount. If l)r. Price, instead of resting satisfied with Susmilch’s hypothesis, had taken the actual ages of the dying within the bills of mortality, he would have found only a casual approximation to the hypothesis for the whole metropolis ; and if he had taken the worst conditioned districts, that, as applied to them, he would probably have found he was in error full one-half. On Mr. Milne’s own data it ap- pears, that the proportions of deaths to the population at Carlisle, instead of coinciding with the ascertained average ages of death (i.e. 38*72,) were in the year 1710, 1 in 35 ; in 1787, they were one in 43; and in 1801, they were 1 in 44. Having caused an average to be deduced from the actual ages of 5,200,141 deaths which occurred in the Prussian States from 1820 to 1834, it appears that instead of 36 years, the actual average age of deaths was only 28 years and 10 months. The average ages of death in France, as deduced from Douvillard’s table, founded on the experience of one million of deaths, instead of being 36 years, wa3 28 years and 5 months. The public errors, created and maintained by taking the proportions of deaths as exponents of the average ages of death, or of the chances of life to the population, may be illustrated by reference to the actual experience amongst nearly two millions of the population, or upwards of forty-five thousand deaths in thirty-two districts, equivalent to as many populous towns, w hich the Registrar-General has obligingly enabled me to examine for the year 1839. The Carlisle table is taken as the standard for the duration of life, to measure the loss of life in the several districts, as that table gives the probability of life from infancy, well ascertained for one town, and nearly coincides with the experience of the annuity offices, on the select class of lives insured by them, and with the results which I have obtained from the mortuary registries, showing the average age of death in the county of Hereford. Each of the recognized insurance tables may, however, be used. If the Carlisle table be taken, the chances of life at infancy would be 38*72; by the Chester table it would be 36*70; by the North- ampton, 25*18; by the Montpellier table, 25*36; by the last Swedish table, 39*39; by the experience of Geneva, 40*18. After the attainment of twenty years of age, these several tables give the chances of life as follows ;—by the Carlisle table it would be 41 *46 ; by the Chester table, 36*48; by the Northampton table, 33*43; by the Montpellier table, 37 99 ; by the Swedish table, 39 * 98; by the Geneva experience, 37*67 ; and by the experience of the Equitable Society, 41*67. For civic pur- poses in this country, the most important period for considering the chances of life is after coming of age, or after the attainment of twenty- b 2