An Address Delivered Before The Association Of The Alumni Of Columbia College Classic Reprint PDF Download

Excerpt from Anniversary Address Delivered Before the Alumni Association of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Medical Department of Columbia College, New York City: March 2d, 1869 We will allude to but one other of the many advantages suggested by faithfully kept records throughout all the States the formation of fife Tables, exhibiting the probabilities or expectation of life; upon which are based those beneficent institutions, now becoming quite popular in this country, (as they have long been in England and on the continent, ) [fife Assurance and Annuity Societies. It may not be generally known, that until recently in Massachusetts, we have hereto fore been indebted wholly to foreign registration (the Carlisle and Northumberlancl tables) for their establishment! Such should not continue the humiliating fact. Again, from the very imperfect Registration now established in this country, our statistics represent human life, in the United States, of shorter duration than in England. But as it might be expected, says an English statistician, from the similarity of the human organization that all classes would, ceteris paribus, live, on an average, the same number of years, it becomes important to ascertain whether this be the case, and if it be not, to deter mine to what extent life is shortened under unfavorable cir cumstances. The Life Table answers this purpose, and is, says the same authority, as indispensible in sanitary inquiries, as the barometer or thermometer and other instruments in physical research. By this simple method, the mean duration of life, uncertain as it appears to be, and as it is with refer ence to individuals, can be determined with the greatest accu racy in nations, and in still smaller communities. Upon applying it to any number of well defined cases, the influence of any external cause or combination of causes, can be analyzed while Without its aid and extended observation and calcula tion, we are liable to be misled at every step by vague Opinions or interested statements, in estimating the relative duration of life, - Which can no more be made out by conjecture, than the relative diameters of the sun, moon and planets of our system. If these things are so, and of their truthfulness, no intelligent mind can doubt, it is obvious that with this measure are entwined the dearest earthly interests of the human family. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.