the superiority of female life is evident in every instance. Finlaison's Reports on the Evidence and Elementary Facts, on which the Tables on Life Annuities are founded, p. 17, Lond. 1829."

Mr. Finlaison's own calculations will, he hopes, remove all doubt whatsoever on this subject. They shew that, except under the age of 12 and above the age of 85, extreme periods, at which, perhaps, no distinction of mortality is apparent, there is at every other period a remarkable and decided advantage in favour of the female. This is first most evident about fourteen, after which the mortality among the female sex is observed to proceed onwards to the age of fifty-five, with the slightest imaginable increase, contrary to the received notions respecting nursing and child-bearing. Above sixty, the female mortality advances more rapidly, but is always, until the age of eighty, at least, very decidedly less than that of the males.

The mortality of males, from the age of 14 to that of 23, presents a remarkable increase, much greater proportionately, than that of females at the same period. This is probably owing, as Dr. Davis remarks, to the greater opportunities for indulgence, of all kind, offered to the male and accepted by him. Subsequently to the publication of Mr. Finlaison's Report, the Directors of the Eagle Assurance Association have introduced a considerable difference in the purchase-price of their policies, in favour of the supposed greater average value of female life; but the example has not been followed by any other life assurance society.

The facts already stated shew satisfac torily enough, that the establishment of the catamenia is not a source of danger to the female, that is, her mortality at that period, as at every other, is less than that of the male. The cessation of the menses has always been looked on as dangerous to woman's life, more dangerous than their establishment. Let us look at the evidence of facts on this point also. Are women liable to a greater mortality at this period

than the male sex at the same age, or are women subject to a greater mortality at this than at any other period of their own lives? We must again refer to the calculations of Mr. Finlaison. The advantage in favour of female life, he remarks, is first most evident about 14, after which the mortality in the female sex is observed to proceed onwards to the age of 55, with the slightest imaginable increase.

"The following calculations of the rate of mortality of the government annuitants are made on a scale of 100,000 lives of members of both sexes and of all ages. The results, which are especially illustrative of the immediately current part of our inquiry, are distributed into three epochs of five years each, inclusive of the median line of life in both sexes, and in the female of the period of cessation of the menses. During each of these epochs, the rates of mortality of each sex are given as follows in their respective progressions. Out of 100,000 members alive of all ages, there will die in the five years after the age of 35, i. e. between the ages of 35 and 40, the latter inclusive, of males 7,042, and of females 5,738; in the five years after 40, i. e. between the ages of 40 and 45, the latter inclusive, there will die of males, 6,959, and of females 6,889; and after the age of 45, i. e. between the years of 45 and 50, the latter inclusive, there will die, of males 10,381, and of females 7,714."

Thus, in the government annuitants, there is less difference between the mortality of males and females, from the age of 40 to 45, than either before or after that period, a fact which goes to prove the prejudicial influence of the cessation of the catamenia. But some other calculations have recently been published at Brussels, by Messrs. Quetelet and Smits, in a pamphlet entitled, Recherches sur la Reproduction et la Mortalité de l'Homme, aux differens Ages, et sur la Population de la Belgique, 1832.

"A government order was issued in 1828 for a census of the entire population of Belgium, with directions that it should

include returns of all the births, deaths, marriages, and changes of residence of the people during every year, and accompanied by an intimation that a similar assessment would be ordered for every ten years. The order for the first census was carried into effect towards the end of the year 1829. It is a peculiarity of this assessment that it has furnished distinct tables of results on all the points which it was charged to report upon for two classes of population, viz. for residents of towns and for those of country districts. Now

it happens that, on these separate returns for the towns and for the country districts, its reports of the mortality of the different sexes exhibit a most extraordinary discrepancy with all former results on subjects of this kind. In Messrs. Quetelet's and Smits returns of the country mortality, the female deaths present an excess over those of the males during the three series of years corresponding with those just quoted from Mr. Finlaison's reports, in the proportion of something more than 24 to 18. Making 100,000, as in Mr. Finlaison's calculations, the numerical basis of their operations, the comparative mortality of the two sexes for the country districts of Belgium, as given by Messrs. Quetelet and Smits, are as follows; viz. out of 100,000 persons of both sexes alive, the rates of deaths within the five years between the ages of 35 and 40, the latter inclusive, are, of males 4,681, and of females 8,071; in the five years between the ages of 40 and 45, the latter inclusive, of males 5,975, and of females 8,536; and in the five years between the ages of 45 and 50, the latter inclusive, of males 7,692, and of females 8,056. Thus we see represented a most remarkable excess of female mortality in the country districts of Belgium; whereas in all the towns of the Netherlands, the returns would seem to correspond at least in principle with what has hitherto been considered in the light almost of a general law of mortality. Accordingly out of 100,000 inhabitants of the towns of Belgium, the rates of deaths in five years af

ter the age of 35, i. e. between the ages of 35 and 40, the latter inclusive, of males 7,189, and of females, 7,679; between the ages of 40 and 45, the latter inclusive, of males 8,894, and of females 7,153; and between the ages of 45 and 50, the latter inclusive, of males 8,678, and of females 8,062; giving a total of mortality for the three series of years together of 24,761 males and 22,894 females. But the excess of the mortality in some particular towns of Belgium very greatly surmounts the average results of Messrs. Quetelet and Smits. The author is indebted to the further kindness of Mr. Finlaison for the following quotation from a table of the average mortality of Ostend, constructed from the best possible materials, by that gentleman himself, whilst recently residing temporarily in that town. For the convenience of an accurate comparison with the results of the foregoing calculations, the operation is given on the same numerical scale of 100,000 lives. With that understanding, the rates relatively of the male and female mortality at Ostend, during the tract of years intermediate between the ages of 35 and 50, as made out by Mr. Finlaison, and believed by him to be scarcely liable to the possibility of error, is as follows:-Out of 100,000 souls of both sexes and of all ages the rates of deaths after 35 years of age, i. e. between the ages of 35 and 40, the latter inclusive, are, of males 8,041 and of females 6,665; between the ages of 40 and 45, the latter inclusive, of males 11,107, and of females 7,094; and between the ages of 45 and 50, the latter inclusive, of males 13,079, and of females 8,188. From these results it follows, that the difference in the value of life in Ostend against the male and in favour of the female, at a period of life, inclusive in both sexes of the commencement of its decline, and in the female of the cessation of the menses, is in the very remarkable proportion of 32 to 21.”

We are anxious to put the whole of the case, as stated by Dr. Davis, before our readers, the investigation being equally

curious and instructive. It is unpardonable, now-a-days, for any educated medical practitioner to be unacquainted with sta

tistical calculations of the value of human life. Dr. Davis concludes the subject by quoting the sentiments of M. Desonneaux. The facts brought forward by that gentleman are somewhat too vague to command implicit belief; but as they are, to a certain degree, borne out by the tables and calculations of Mr. Finlaison, already noticed, it may be right to notice them here. M. Desonneaux, it will be seen, is not one of those who consider the epoch of the cessation of the catamenia as on the whole a fatal one. M. Desonneaux observes that in an essay read by M. Bensiston de Chateauneuf to the Academy of Sciences, in 1818, but not published, "On the Mortality of Women at the Age of between Forty and Fifty," some facts are related, which he thus transcribes:

"From the forty-third to the sixtieth degree of North latitude, along a line extending from Marseilles to St. Petersburgh, passing by Vevay, Paris, Berlin, and Stockholm, it is a fact that at no epoch of female life, from the thirtieth to the sixtieth year, are we able to discover any increase in the mortality of women, beyond what should be attributed to the natural progress of age; whereas at all epochs of male life, from the age of thirty to that of seventy, we observe a greater rate of mortality of the male than of the female sex. This excess is most remarkable between the ages of forty and fifty. It results from these new observations, that the age of from forty to fifty is more truly critical for men than for women; and that seems to be the fact, whatever be the kind of life they lead, and whether they live in society or retirement, whether in the camp or in the cloister. Inasmuch, however, as it cannot be denied that a certain number of women die between the ages of forty and filty, IN CONSEQUNCE OF THE REVOLU

TION WHICH TAKES PLACE IN THEIR CONSTITUTION AT THAT PERIOD, a cause

of mortality which does not exist in the other sex, what would be their decrement of numbers, already actually inferior to that

of the male sex during the same period, and what might be expected to be the strength and duration of the lives, did they possess the additional privilege of not being subject to this law."

The whole of the documentary evidence is before our readers. It will require accu

rate observation and authentic tables, conducted and constructed in various places, and at various times, to determine in a satis

factory manner, the actual value of male and of female life. The contradictory facts observed in the towns and country parts of Belgium, show that we are far from comprehensively informed, and that we cannot yet venture to generalize or average. We trust that philosophic men will devote some of their time, and their attention, to the in

vestigation of the effects of natural laws and human occupations on human life, as evinced by its value at different ages, in different sexes, and in different countries.

XXXVI.

ON HYBERNATION.

In a very interesting paper on Hybernation, Dr. Marshall Hall remarks that there is a strong analogy between this singular state and that of ordinary sleep, the former being only a much exagerated condition of the latter. In both, the necessity of breathing is lessened; Messrs. Allen and Pepys first established the truth of this, in reference to ordinary sleep, and it is very probable that muscular irritability becomes at the same time more energetic, just in the same manner as in hybernation. These phenomena are more obvious in the ordinary sleep of the hybernating, than of any animals; for example, Dr. Hall observed a bat while asleep, and found that its respiration became very imperfect: that its temperature was only a few degrees above that of the atmosphere, and that it might be kept under water for 11 minutes without injury to life. Similar observations were made upon hedgehogs: while active, their temperature was 95, while asleep, it was only 45°, that of the atmosphere at the time being 42° or 43°. The experiment was the more striking when one hedgehog was asleep, and another was lively, in the same box: the

themselves; and then, they usually degenerate and are considerably modified from their original type. But the essential characters of an epidemic miasm, viz. the suddenness, and extent, and sweeping fatality of its ravages, are sufficient to distinguish a pestilence from a disease of mere climate, or in other words from an endemic. Hippocrates, in his Treatise on Air, Waters, and Localities, acknowledges that such can never generate a pestilential disease; they may however modify its character, and impart a colouring to its features. What strongly argues the distinctive nature of an epidemic, is that it is not limited to any one, or two countries or districts, but sweeps over a great extent of the earth. We witness them to prevail alike in Russia and in Poland, among the Turks and the West Indians. It is a very prevailing notion that all the great epidemics have sprung up in warm climates, and have been diffused from south to north; but this is not quite correct; for example, the yellow fever is known to arise in the cold latitudes of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, and in the temperate regions of Georgia and the Carolinas, as well as in the burning Antilles; and it not unfrequently ravages the most northern towns of the United States, while the inhabitants of the more Southern, and of the American Archipelago are quite free from it; so often is this the case, that the merchants between the tropics accuse the people of New York and Boston of having imported the disease. The great pestilence of 1798, which ravaged the United States, commenced at Boston, situated in 45° N. and that which swept over so large a portion of Europe towards the close of the sixteenth century, shewed itself first in the Gulf of Finland, then passed over Livonia and other northern countries, to England, afterwards to Italy and the South of France, even to the Island of Crete. The dreadful plague of 1719 began at Aleppo, and is supposed to have furnished the germ of that one which depopulated Marseilles on the following

year; and again, a previous plague of the early year of the 17th century, appears to have broken out at nearly the same time in the northern and southern nations, as Russia, Livonia, England, France and Turkey. It appears therefore from the preceding date, that epidemic disorders are confined to no particular climates or latitudes; this is one feature of their character; another is, that the human system appears to become somewhat accustomed to their pernicious influences by a long residence in the countries visited chiefly by them, so that it is less susceptible of suffering from their attack; as a proof of this, we may state that the Creoles do not fall victims to the yellow fever in the same proportion as the other inhabitants of the West Indies, thus two-thirds of the fine French army sent in 1803 to St. Domingo, were sacrificed by this plague, at a time when the Creoles, Planters and Negroes, were enjoying complete exemption. The variety of a second attack of pestilential disorders is a subject worthy of attention. Dr. Russel states that out of 4,400 patients who had the plague, only twenty-eight were attacked by it a second time, a statement which shews that the animal system can in course of time adapt itself to the most deleterious atmosphere.-Révue Med. Sept. 1832.

(To be continued.)

XXVII.