eminent surgeon, of Leeds.-Out-of-door occupations. Butchers are subject to few ailments, and these the result of plethora. Though more free from diseases than other trades, they, however, do not enjoy greater longevity: on the contrary, Mr. Thackrah thinks their lives shorter than those of other men who spend much time in the open air. Cattle and horse-dealers are generally healthy, except when their habits are intemperate. Fish-mongers, though much exposed to the weather, are hardy, temperate, healthy and long-lived; cart-drivers, if sufficiently fed, and temperate, the same. Laborers in husbandry, &c., suffer from a deficiency of nourishment. Brickmakers, with full muscular exercise in the open air, though exposed to vicissitudes of cold and wet, avoid rheumatism and inflammatory diseases, and attain good old age. Paviers are subject to complaints in the loins, increasing with age, but they live long. Chaise-drivers, postillions, coachmen, guards, &c., and from the position of the two former on the saddle, irregular living, &c., and from the want of muscular exercise in the two latter, are subject to gastric disorders, and, finally, to apoplexy and palsy, which shorten their lives. Carpenters, coopers, wheelwrights, &c., are healthy and long-lived. Smiths are often intemperate, and die comparatively young. Ropemakers and gardeners suffer from their stooping postures.-In-door occupations. Tailors, notwithstanding their confined atmosphere and bad posture, are not liable to acute diseases, but give way to stomach complaints and consumption. The prejudicial influence of their employment is more insidious than urgent: it undermines rather than destroys life. Stay-makers have their health impaired, but live to a good age. Milliners, dress-makers and straw-bonnet-makers are unhealthy and short-lived. Spinners, cloth-dressers, weavers, &c., are more or less healthy, according as they have more or less exercise and air. Those exposed to inhale imperceptible particles of dressings, &c., such as frizers, suffer from disease, and are soonest cut off. Shoemakers are placed in a bad posture. Digestion and circulation are so much impaired, that the countenance marks a shoemaker almost as well as a tailor. We suppose that, from the reduction of perspiration, and other evacuations, in this and similar employments, the blood is impure, and, consequently, the complexion darkened. The secretion of bile is generally unhealthy, and bowel complaints are frequent. In the few shoemakers who live to old age, there is often a remarkable hollow at the base of the breastbone, occasioned by the pressure of the last. Curriers and leatherdressers are very healthy, and live to old age. Saddlers lean much forward, and suffer, accordingly, from head-ache and indigestion. Printers (our worthy co-operators) are kept in a confined atmosphere, and generally want exercise. Pressmen, however, have good and varied labor. The constant application of the eyes to minute objects gradually enfeebles these organs. The standing posture, long maintained here, as well as in other occupations, tends to injure the digestive organs. Some printers complain of disorder of the stomach and head, and few appear to enjoy full health. Consumption is frequent. We can scarcely find or hear of any compositor above the age of 50. In many towns, printers are intemperate. Bookbinders,-a healthy employment. Carvers and gilders look pale and weakly, but their lives are not abbreviated

in a marked degree. Clock-makers are generally healthy and longlived; watch-makers, the reverse. House servants, in large, smoky towns, are unhealthy. Colliers and well-sinkers,-a class by themselves, seldom reach the age of 50.-Employments producing dust, odor, or gaseous exhalations. These are not injurious, if they arise from animal substances, or from the vapor of wine or spirits. Tobacco manufacturers do not appear to suffer from the floating poison in their atmosphere. Snuff making is more pernicious. Men in oil-mills are generally healthy. Brush-makers live to a great age. Grooms and hostlers inspire ammoniacal gas, and are robust, healthy, and long-lived. Glue and size boilers, exposed to the most noxious stench, are freshlooking and robust. Tallow-chandlers, also exposed to offensive animal odor, attain considerable age. Tanners are remarkably strong, and exempt from consumption. Corn-millers, breathing an atmosphere loaded with flour, are pale and sickly, and very rarely attain old age. Malsters cannot live long, and must leave the trade in middle life. Teamen suffer from the dust, especially of green teas; but this injury is not permanent. Coffee-roasters become asthmatic, and subject to head-ache and indigestion. Paper-makers, when aged, cannot endure the effect of the dust from cutting the rags. The author suggests the use of machinery in this process. In the wet and wear and tear of the mills, they are not seriously affected, but live long. Masons are short-lived, dying generally before 40. They inhale particles of sand and dust, lift heavy weights, and are too often intemperate. Miners die prematurely. Machine-makers seem to suffer only from the dust they inhale, and the consequent bronchial irritation. The (iron) filers almost all unhealthy men, and remarkable short-lived. Founders (in brass) suffer from the inhalation of the volatilized metal. In the founding of yellow brass, in particular, the evolution of oxide of zinc is very great. They seldom reach 40 years. Copper-smiths are considerably affected by the fine scales which rise from the imperfectly volatilized metal, and by the fumes of the spelter, or solder of brass. The men are generally unhealthy, suffering from disorders similar to those of the brass-founders. Tin-plate-workers are subjected to fumes from muriate of ammonia, and sulphureous exhalations from the coke which they burn. These exhalations, however, appear to be annoying, rather than injurious, as the men are tolerably healthy, and live to a considerable age. Tinners, also, are subject only to temporary inconvenience from the fumes of the soldering. Plumbers are exposed to the volatilized oxide of lead, which rises during the process of casting. They are sickly in appearance, and short-lived. House-painters are unhealthy, and do not attain generally full age. Chemists and druggists, in laboratories, are sickly and consumptive. Potters, affected through the pores of the skin, become paralytic, and are remarkably subject to constipation. Hatters, grocers, bakers and chimney-sweepers (a droll association) also suffer through the skin; but, although the irritation occasions diseases, they are not, except in the last class, fatal. Dyers are healthy and long-lived. Brewers are, as a body, far from healthy. Under a robust and often florid appearance, they conceal chronic diseases of the abdomen, particularly a congested state of the venous system. When these men are accidentally hurt or

wounded, they are more liable than other individuals to severe and dangerous effects. Cooks and confectioners are subjected to considerable heat. Our common cooks are more unhealthy than house-maids. Their digestive organs are frequently disordered, they are subject to head-ache, and their tempers rendered irritable. Glass-workers are healthy. Glass-blowers often die suddenly.

Literary occupations do not appear to be more injurious to long life than many others. Many of the first literati, most distinguished for application throughout life, have attained old age, both in modern and ancient times. In the ancient authors, numerous instances of this kind are recorded, many of which may be found collected in the work of Hufeland, already alluded to.-We will add a few instances of extraordinary longevity. The Englishman Parr, who was born in 1483, married when at the age of 120, retained his vigor till 140, and died at the age of 152, from plethora. Harvey, the distinguished discoverer of the circulation of blood, who dissected him, found no decay of any organ. (Philosophical Transactions, vol. iii, 1698.) Henry Jenkins, who died in Yorkshire, in 1670, is, perhaps, the greatest authentic instance of longevity. He lived 169 years. Margaret Forster, a native of Cumberland, England, died in 1771, aged 136; and James Lawrence, a Scotchman, lived 140 years. A Dane, named Drakenberg, died in 1772, in his 147th year; and John Effingham, or Essingham, died in Cornwall, in 1757, aged 144. In 1792, a soldier, named Mittelstedt, died in Prussia, at the age of 112. Joseph Surrington, a Norwegian, died at Bergen, in 1797, aged 160 years. The St. Petersburg papers announced, in 1830, the death of a man 150 years old, at Moscow; and, in 1831, the death of a man in Russia, 165 years old, was reported. On May 7, 1830, died a man named John Ripkey, at the age of 108, in London. His sight remained good till the last. In 1830, a poor man, near lake Thrasimene, died, 123 years old. He preserved his faculties to the last. In 1825, pope Leo XII. gave him a pension. The late return of the population of the city of New York, according to the census of 1830, makes the number of those who live beyond the allotted three-score and ten, in the proportion of about 1 per cent. of the whole number. Although the number of white males exceeds that of females, 1861, yet of those [8009,] who are upwards of 70, the excess is in favor of the females, there being 4175 of the latter, and but 3834 of the former. Of the 17 white persons above a hundred, 15, on the contrary, are males; and of the 45 black persons, a hundred and upwards, only 11 are males. The proportion of centenarians among the blacks is much larger than among the whites, making all proper allowances for their exaggeration and ignorance.-Belsham's Chronology informs us that 21 persons, who had attained the age of 130 and upwards, died between the years 1760 and 1829; of these, one was aged 166. In same period, 39 had attained the age of 120, and not 130. The number who attained the age of 110, and not 120, was 36 in the same space. And those who died after the age of 100, and before 110, were 54 within the period. Of the whole number recorded, 94 were natives of England, 23 of Ireland, and 12 of Russia. Doubtless many more have died after the age of 100, without having had their names recorded. The northern climates afford

more instances of longevity than the southern; and although far the greater part of those who have attained extreme old age have been distinguished for sobriety, yet some of them do not appear to have been in the habit of restraining their appetites. In China, where old age is much respected, people receive presents from government, when they have attained a great age.

From the British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review, for 1848.

A Statistical Notice of the Laws of Mortality and of Survivorship at different Ages of Human Life, deduced from 10,203 deaths occurring in the Canton of Geneva during the eight years 1839-45. By Dr. MARC D'ESPINE.

The author observes that perhaps Geneva is the only city in existence which can furnish, almost uninterruptedly, tables of its mortality, and the changes in probable and mean duration of life, for so long a space of time as 273 years,-viz: from 1560 to 1833. With the results obtained from these, as set forth in Mallet's 'Researches,' he compares in the present article those derived from his own observations, carried over a period of eight years. Although we cannot reproduce the tables in which these materials are exhibited, we may notice some of the conclusions the author arrives at.

Mortality of children.-The mortality of the first year of life has been continually decreasing; or, in other words, the proportion who survive their first year has been increasing. Thus, the number of survivors per 1000 amounted to 740 in the sixteenth century; to 763, in the seventeenth; to 798, in the eighteenth; to 848, in the first 34 years of the nineteenth; and to 877, in the author's tables,-i. e. a mortality of 123 per 1000. From one to ten years of age, the mortality in the canton of Geneva is very nearly the same as that of the first year, viz: 133. At the earlier period of the present century it was still less (128 and 130), so as exactly to compensate for the comparative greater infantile mortality. Going backwards from 1814, however, the mortality at both periods steadily increases; and thus with 744 survivors per 1000 in 1838-45, we find but 643 in 1761-1800; 601 in 1701-61; 524 in 1601-1700; and 480 in 1561-1600. It is remarkable that in the sixteenth century the number of survivors at one year was less considerable than is that now at ten years.

Mean life. The mean life, in general, is the sum of the years lived by a total of individuals supposed to be born together, divided by the sum of the births. According to the author's tables, it was 41-78 years for 1838-45, while it was but 38 years for the first fourteen years of the nineteenth century; 33.1 for the latter half, and 31-8 for the first half, of the eighteenth; 228 for the seventeenth; and 18 for the latter half, of the sixteenth. The increase from 1560 to the beginning of the nineteenth century has thus become more than double; but during the last thirty years it seems to have attained its highest point, and to be insusceptible of further augmentation. In fact, the city of Geneva furnished for the years 1816-30 the same mean life as in the years 1838-45. Considered relatively to different ages, the mean life is the quotient resulting from the division of the sum of years which individuals of a certain age have lived by the sum of the individuals of that age. In the

author's tables it increases from birth to between three and four years, being 47.9 at four years. This maximum attained, it uniformly decreases to advanced age. The maximum was attained, at three years also in the fourteen first years of this century; but in the two preceding centuries and the latter part of the sixteenth, the increase continued to the fifth year.

Probable life. The term is, in general, understood to indicate. the age at which the half of those born in the same year are dead, while the other half survives. This, according to the author's tables, was 43.62; while in 1801-14, it was 40.68; in 1760-1800, 32-37; in 1700-60, 27-18; in 1600-1700, 11-61; and 1560-1600, 4.88 years. Thus, the probable life, which in the sixteenth century was four times less than the mean, has from that time become progressively increased, and that more rapidly than the mean life; so that by the end of the seventeenth century these two lives were nearly equal, while from that time to the present, the probable life has been maintained some years above the mean life; but, like the latter, it seems to have reached its highest point, and, during the last thirty years, to have somewhat sank. Influence of sex.-The tables published in various parts of Europe all agree in showing a preponderance of male births; and of the 10,761 here examined, 5483 were male, 5278 female,-i. e. 1000 to 963; and yet, as in the rest of Europe also, the female population exceeds the male. It did so in the canton of Geneva, in the proportion of 1000 to 926, at the census of 1843. In early infancy the causes of death especially attack males. From that time to a little beyond puberty, but without following this law regularly from year to year, it falls on the female rather more than the male, but much less markedly than in the case of the earlier predominance in the male. From ten to towards old age, more men than women die; whilst from old age to the end of life this is the case with women. The above statement applies to all countries that have published their vital statistics, and only differs in any of them as to the precise duration of the several periods. In our author's tables the male mortality predominates until near the eighth year, from which to the nineteenth more females perish. From 20 to 60, men again acquire the ascendancy; of the forty years constituting this period, there are 27 in which the male deaths predominate, and 13 in which those of either sex are equal. From 60 to the end of life, females maintain the ascendancy. At all epochs of human life, in an equal number of births of each sex, more women than men survive, except at the first year, when the numbers are equal. M. Quetelet has found likewise, in the Belgian and Parisian tables, that the excess of male births is almost entirely balanced by the excess of male mortality during the first year, while the tables for 1841 show that in England the equilibrium is attained even somewhat before that period.

According to the author's tables, the mean life of women, setting out from birth, is 3-5 years superior to that of men; and two years, according to the five English reports. It is at birth that this differs most in the sexes, after which they tend to approach each other, until an equality is attained at an advanced age (62 in the author's tables, 93 in the English.) The difference of the probability of life at birth is 6·72.