During the first thirty years of the nineteenth century France recorded more than 30 births per thousand inhabitants; from 1835 to 1869 the birth-rate oscillated between 30 and 26 per thousand. Leaving out the depopulating years of the Franco-Prussian War, 1870–71, and years succeeding, which suffered from this scourge, we find that from 1876 to 1900 the birth-rate was on the decline and ranged from 26 to 22 per thousand. In 1900 it had sunk to 21, and by the latest statistics it is at present only 20 per thousand inhabitants.
This writer tells us that while in 1801 the birth-rate in France exceeded the death-rate by 5.1 per thousand inhabitants, the excess last year was merely 0.3 per thousand. He admits that hygienic improvements and decreasing deaths among children have lowered the death-rate, but this can not remedy the decrease of the birth-rate:
If ten homes do not contain among them more than fifteen children to take the place of twenty parents, there is no reduction in the death-rate which can prevent the final diminution of the national population.
(250)
BLACK, TURNING
Character can be made black as easily, but not as easily restored, as the skin of the lady mentioned in the extract below:
A celebrated Parisian belle, says the Popular Science News, who had acquired the habit of whitewashing herself, so to speak, from the soles of her feet to the roots of her hair, with chemically-prepared cosmetics, one day took a medicated bath, and on emerging from it she was horrified to find herself as black as an Ethiopian. The transformation was complete; not a vestige of the “supreme Caucasian race” was left. Her physician was sent for in alarm and haste. On his arrival he laughed immoderately and said, “Madame, you are not ill, you are a chemical product. You are no longer a woman, but you are a ‘sulfid.’ It is not now a question of medical treatment, but a simple chemical reaction. I shall subject you to a bath of sulfuric acid diluted with water. The acid will have the honor of combining with you; it will take up the sulfur, the metal will produce a ‘sulfurate,’ and we shall find as a ‘precipitate’ a very pretty woman.” The good-natured physician went through with his reaction, and the belle was restored to her membership with the white race.
(251)
Blasted Hopes—See [Disappointment].
Bleeding in Old Times—See [Surgery, Improvement in].