Synopses & Reviews
This study examines the pre-history of statistics in eighteenth-century England and France, before state governments and other institutions began to collect statistical data on a regular basis. Eighteenth-century political and medical arithmeticians developed a variety of useful techniques to measure health and population. This book highlights the history of numerical tables, as new scientific instruments, and explains how they were used to evaluate smallpox inoculations, and the health and size of populations.
Review
"An excellent overview of a vital, though hitherto neglected , dimension of eighteenth-century history." The International History Review
Synopsis
Examines the pre-history of statistics in eighteenth-century England and France, before state governments began to collect statistical data on a regular basis. The author highlights the history of numerical tables, as new scientific instruments, and explains how they were used to evaluate smallpox inoculations, the health and size of populations.
Synopsis
Explains how numerical tables were used to evaluate the health and size of populations.
Synopsis
Rusnock shows how vital accounts became the measure of public health and welfare.
Table of Contents
Introduction; 1. A new science: political arithmetic; Part I. Smallpox Inoculation and Medical Arithmetic: 2. A measure of safety: English debates in the 1720s; 3. The limits of calculation: French debates over inoculation in the 1760s; 4. Charitable calculations: English debates of the inoculation of the urban poor, 1750-1800; Part II. Medical Arithmetic and Environmental Medicine: 5. Medical meteorology: accounting for the weather and disease; 6. Interrogating death: disease, mortality, and environment; Part III. Political Arithmetic: 7. Count, measure, compare: the depopulation debates; Conclusion.