A historical account of bills of mortality, and the probability of human life, in Glasgow and other large towns / by James Cleland.

  • Cleland, James, 1770-1840.
Date:
1836
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A historical account of bills of mortality, and the probability of human life, in Glasgow and other large towns / by James Cleland. 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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    / that various observations on the duration of life in different parts of England have hitherto been prepared, upon which tables of the value of annuities and of insurances on lives have been constructed. In a report which he submitted to the Treasury, and which was ordered to be printed by the House of Commons, on 31st March, 1829, he demonstrated the impossibility that any faith whatever could be put in Bills of Mortality, as they are now prepared, for such a purpose. In order to procure an approximation to the rate of mortality which prevails among the working classes in this country, he resorted to the public register at Ostend, in Flanders, where he made an observation on the mortality of that town, for a period of twenty-six years, ending at January, 1832. The registers of births and burials, at Ostend, are drawn up with extreme precision, and the system is precisely the same as that which prevails in France. From these registers he was enabled to determine that Ostend is, notwithstanding the opinion that prevails in England, a very healthy situation, and, no doubt, is equal to the average of England. At least, the only knowledge of the law of mortality, as prevailing among the lower classes in England, on which he was able to depend, is derived from that which he obtained in Flanders. INIr. Finlaison farther stated, that from the mode in which the registers are kept at Ostend, be was enabled to determine the expectation of life and the values of annuities and of life insurance for each sex, and at every age, from the birth. He also found that the mortality upon the whole population, which consists of about 11,000 souls, was annu- ally at the rate of one death in 36i, or eight deaths for every 289 of the population. In this country it is gravely stated, even in Parliament, that the rate of mortality is, in some counties, only one in 65, or eight in 520, a manifest impossibility ; because, if only one in 65 die in a year, the mean duration of life of an infant, newly-born, is 64J years, there- fore 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. He was enabled also to determine the rate of mortality in early infancy, a thing totally unknown in this country. The extracts prepared for him by the town clei’k gave the deaths at each month in the first year of in- fancy, and at each three months in the second year, from %vhich he was enabled to deduce a curious fact, that in Flanders, in both sexes collectively, of all the children born, a number rather less than one-fifth die in the fii’st year; one quarter, exactly, of the number who so die, expire in the first month. As to any thing like an account of the disease by which death is occasioned, he thought that branch of inquiry is out of the ques- tion. At any rate, as the laws of papulation and mortality depend upon masses and not particular cases, whatever utility may result from a registry of disease, the object of the calculation may, for the most part, be attained without it tolerably well. The rate of mortality in any country may be estimated locally or generally, but in both cases it is necessary to have the number existing at each age of the living population on a particular date, either at the commencement of the period embraced by the observation, or at the termination thereof, and it would certainly be far better if it could be obtained at both, but with one such census'in addition to the total number of deaths at every age, and the total number of births within that period, the observation can be made with tolerable accuracy. Were such a registry kept for a considerable number of years, the population could be determined with accuracy from the results preserved by the register, far better than by any census. The registry on the Continent is absolutely perfect for most pur- ,poses, whereas the system pursued in this country is, in a great measure, totally useless. GLASGOW BILLS OF MOUFALITY. As the Glasgow Bills of Mortality, from which the probability of ImmaM life in large