Graunt, John (1620-1674).

8vo (168 x 102mm.), [30], 205pp., 2 folding letterpress tables at pp.172 & 201, illustration: engraved coat-of-arms on A1 verso, woodcut initials, binding: eighteenth-century calf gilt, early manuscript table on p.[200] entitled "Christenings, Marriages & Burials in the City of Paris for the year 1670... 1671... 1672", short tear in text of K2 (without loss), some light spotting, binding rubbed, upper joint split at foot

Wing G1600; Goldsmiths 1757; Kress 1155

First published in 1662, Graunt's observations on the bills of mortality led to the publication of the first life table to be based on real mortality data. Designed to provide a warning against a plague epidemic, the bills of mortality did not give the age of death, but did provide the cause of death, and from this Graunt was able to estimate that 36 per cent of all deaths concerned children under the age of six. The Table of Casualties lists a wide range of deaths, ranging from the common ague and fever, consumption and cough, plague, teeth and worms and aged, to the rarer suddenly, fainted in the bath and leprosie. Graunt also provided an estimation of the population of London, 384,000, a figure considered fairly accurate by modern demographers. The Observations was an extremely popular work and five editions had been printed by 1676.