Health and life / by Benjamin Ward Richardson.

  • Richardson, Benjamin Ward, 1828-1896.
Date:
1878
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Health and life / by Benjamin Ward Richardson. 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.

    26/360 (page 12)
    A valuaWe lesson on this subject has been written by a very able reviewer, in relation to the life value of the inhabitants of the little town of Montreux, a parish in the canton of Yaud, in Switzerland. The facts, and the argu- ment based on the facts, run somewhat in the following order. The records of Montreux, which had been faithfully kept for several years by the good pastor, M. Bridel, showed that the population was limited to two thousand eight hundred and thirty-three souls, and told all that related to the life-history of this self-contained community. The births were at the rate of one in forty-five, the deaths one in sixty-four, an- nually, or 15-62 in the thousand living. The writer compared this mortality with that of a Eusso-Greek population existing at the same period of time, in which population the bn^ths were one in seventeen, and the deaths one m twenty-five, i.e. at the rate of forty in the thousand. Mark! says he, the figui-es which announce the proportional mortahty of these contrasted communities. In the Kussian com- munity one-twenty-fifth disappear annuaUy; m Montreux one-sixty-fourth. The Kussian gene- rations passed away more than twice as rapidly as the population of Montreux. Who would purchase the advantage, equivocal at best, ot a triple number of births, accompanied by this