[218]. The local causes to which we would particularly refer, are those connected with humidity of atmosphere, which so generally occurs in the vicinity of the sea. The author speaks from experience, when he ventures to assert that the most efficient extracts soon lose their powers under such circumstances.
[219]. A bill was recently introduced in the House of Commons on this subject, but did not pass into a law.
[220]. The first bills containing the ages of the dead were those for the town of Breslaw in Silesia, from which Dr. Halley deduced a table of the probabilities of the duration of human life, at every age, see Philosophical Transactions (Abridgement vol. iii, p. 669.) Similar bills were established at Northampton in 1735.
[221]. We ought to mention that in consequence of the apprehension respecting the plague having subsided, the company soon began to discover that the weekly bills declined in sale; in order therefore to keep alive the public interest, and to preserve for themselves the income which arose from it, they printed on the same sheet, in the year 1735, the regulated prices of bread and salt.—!
[222]. This society was incorporated by Letters Patent of the 17th Henry iii, in 1239, by the style of the “Fraternity of Saint Nicholas;” and they were re-incorporated by charter of the 9th of James i. In 1625, they obtained a decree from the Star chamber, allowing them to keep a press in their hall, for the printing of the weekly and general bills of mortality of the city and liberties of London: and for this purpose the Archbishop of Canterbury appoints a printer. All which privileges were subsequently confirmed by a charter granted by Charles ii.
[223]. Strictures on the Uses and Defects of Parish Registers and Bills of Mortality, with suggestions for improving and extending the System of Parochial Registry. London, 1818.
[224]. Many of the diseases are absolutely unintelligible under their present designation; such, for instance, as Headmoldshot; horse-shoe head; over-grown head; rising of the lights, &c. others are barbarous, as liver-grown; twisting of the guts, &c. others again are far too indefinitely expressed to be admitted as specific diseases, of which aged; bed-ridden; bile; colds; may serve as examples. “Fevers of all kinds” is a little too sweeping and indiscriminate. “Abortives and still-born” united, form a large number in the general annual bill, the absurdity of which is apparent. Child-bed is a formidable article in the bill, and is liable to much misinterpretation and error; all women dying within the month after delivery are indiscriminately classed under child-bed, whether they die in actual labour, or subsequently of acute fever, consumption, or any other disorder. Infants dying before baptism are not returned by the parish clerks in the bills of mortality. In the old bills they were entered under the denomination of Chrysoms, but this title has been long disused. See Burrows’s Strictures, p. 53.
[225]. Observations on the Increase and Decrease of different Diseases, and particularly of the Plague. London, 1801.—See also Stowe’s London, book 5, p. 448.—Morris’s Observations on the past Growth, and Present State of the City of London.—Jameson on the Changes of the Human Body, 8vo. London, 1812.
[226]. Phil. Trans. 1774, vol. lxiv. p. 67; vol. lxv. p. 85; and vol. lxviii. p. 131.
[227]. Phil. Trans. 1782, vol. lxxii. p. 35.