第20章

A probable cause of epidemics - Extracts from Mr Suessmilch's tables - Periodical returns of sickly seasons to be expected in certain cases - Proportion of births to burials for short periods in any country an inadequate criterion of the real average increase of population - Best criterion of a permanent increase of population - Great frugality of living one of the causes of the famines of China and Indostan - Evil tendency of one of the clauses in Mr Pitt's Poor Bill - Only one proper way of encouraging population - Causes of the Happiness of nations -Famine, the last and most dreadful mode by which nature represses a redundant population - The three propositions considered as established.

BY great attention to cleanliness, the plague seems at length to be completely expelled from London. But it is not improbable that among the secondary causes that produce even sickly seasons and epidemics ought to be ranked a crowded population and unwholesome and insufficient food. I have been led to this remark, by looking over some of the tables of Mr Suessmilch, which Dr Price has extracted in one of his notes to the postscript on the controversy respecting the population of England and Wales. They are considered as very correct, and if such tables were general, they would throw great light on the different ways by which population is repressed and prevented from increasing beyond the means of subsistence in any country. I will extract a part of the tables, with Dr Price's remarks.

IN THE KINGDOM 0F PRUSSIA, AND DUKEDOM OF LITHUANIAProportion Proportion Births BurialsMarriages of Births to of Births Marriages Burials 10 Yrs to 1702 21,963 14,718 5,928 37 to 10150to 100

5 Yrs to 171621,602 11,984 4,968 37 to 10180to 100

5 Yrs to 175628,392 19,154 5,599 50 to 10148to 100

'N.B. In 1709 and 1710, a pestilence carried off 247,733 of the inhabitants of this country, and in 1736 and 1737, epidemics prevailed, which again checked its increase.'

It may be remarked, that the greatest proportion of births to burials, was in the five years after the great pestilence.

DUCHY OF POMERANIA

Proportion Proportion Annual Average Births BurialsMarriages of Births to of Births Marriages Burials 6 yrs to 1702 6,540 4,647 1,810 36 to 10 140to 100

6 yrs to 1708 7,455 4,208 1,875 39 to 10 177to 100

6 yrs to 1726 8,432 5,627 2,131 39 to 10 150to 100

6 yrs to 1756 12,767 9,281 2,957 43 to 10 137to 100

'In this instance the inhabitants appear to have been almost doubled in fifty-six years, no very bad epidemics having once interrupted the increase, but the three years immediately follow ing the last period (to 1759) were so sickly that the births were sunk to 10,229 and the burials raised to 15,068.'

Is it not probable that in this case the number of inhabitants had increased faster than the food and the accommodations necessary to preserve them in health? The mass of the people would, upon this supposition, be obliged to live harder, and a greater number would be crowded together in one house, and it is not surely improbable that these were among the natural causes that produced the three sickly years. These causes may produce such an effect, though the country, absolutely considered, may not be extremely crowded and populous. In a country even thinly inhabited, if an increase of population take place, before more food is raised, and more houses are built, the inhabitants must be distressed in some degree for room and subsistence. Were the marriages in England, for the next eight or ten years, to be more prolifick than usual, or even were a greater number of marriages than usual to take place, supposing the number of houses to remain the same, instead of five or six to a cottage, there must be seven or eight, and this, added to the necessity of harder living, would probably have a very unfavourable effect on the health of the common people.

NEUMARK OF BRANDENBURGH

Proportion Proportion Annual Average Births BurialsMarriages of Births to of Births Marriages Burials 5 yrs to 17015,4333,483 1,436 37 to 10155to 100

5 yrs to 17267,0124,254 1,713 40 to 10164to 100

5 yrs to 17567,9785,567 1,891 42 to 10143to 100

'Epidemics prevailed for six years, from 1736, to 1741, which checked the increase.'

DUKEDOM OF MAGDEBURGH

Proportion Proportion Annual Average Births BurialsMarriages of Births to of Births Marriages Burials 5 yrs to 17026,431 4,103 1,681 38 to 10156to 100

5 yrs to 17177,590 5,335 2,076 36 to 10142to 100

5 yrs to 17568,850 8,069 2,193 40 to 10109to 100

'The years 1738, 1740, 1750, and 1751, were particularly sickly.'

For further information on this subject, I refer the reader to Mr Suessmilch's tables. The extracts that I have made are sufficient to shew the periodical, though irregular, returns of sickly seasons, and it seems highly probable that a scantiness of room and food was one of the principal causes that occasioned them.