294 Geographical Collections* 



France, climate, and other local causes, have a very determinate influence 

 on the proportion of the sexes. 



To prove that climate has not this influence, the relation of male and 

 female births, during eleven years, was examined in thirty of the most 

 southern departments of France ; and it having been found that this relation 

 was as 16 males to 15 females in the whole of France, it was concluded that 

 climate had no influence, since the same relation was obtained both in the 

 north and in the south. But it is one thing to observe the fact of this 

 equality, and another to conclude that climate and local circumstances can 

 produce no variation in it. 



Climate comprehends not only heat, cold, and the variable action of 

 seasons, but also all the local causes, such as agricultural labours, the different 

 periods of harvest, of Lent, the variety, abundance, or scarcity of food, which 

 may, in a given country, alter the degree of strength or weakness, of health 

 and well-being, of the population which inhabits it. 



Dr Bailly thinks that the germ before fecundation being absolutely 

 indifferent as to sex, is only determined by the strength or weakness of its 

 parents at the time when it is called into development. If, then, instead of 

 examining separately each of the circumstances which may strengthen or 

 debilitate the constitution, we investigate the collective result of all the 

 influences which succeed each other during a year, we can obtain only a mean 

 term which gives us no definite information. In place, therefore, of taking 

 the total number of births in a year, during the course of which man has 

 been successively afl^ected by so many strengthening and debilitating causes, 

 the births must be examined at different periods of the year, corresponding 

 to each of the successive and variable actions which influence the constitu- 

 tion. In this manner, we shall obtain for each kind of agent an efl!ect of 

 unalterable certainty ; and it is in this way that Dr Bailly has prosecuted 

 his inquiries, the results of which are as follows : — 



1. The sex of an infant depends exclusively on the state of the parents 

 at the time when its development commences ; consequently, cold, heat, 

 moisture, abundance, want, and peculiar qualities of food, medicines, too 

 great or too little exercise, moral condition, habitual kind of occupation, 

 and, in short, every thing moral or physical which is capable of acting 

 favourably or otherwise on the powers or on the health, may vary the 

 proportions of male and female births. 



2. Every thing which favours conception augments the proportion of 

 males ; every thing which diminishes the chances of conception, increases 

 the proportion of females : for instance, if we examine the different months 

 of the year, we shall find that, in general, those in which there have been 

 the greatest number of conceptions, give the greatest proportion of males, 

 and the months in which there have been the least number of conceptions, 

 have a greater proportion of females. 



3. Extreme heat and extreme cold diminish the number of conceptions. 

 Thus, in France, the northern departments have fewest conceptions in 

 winter, and the southern have fewest in summer. The greatest number 

 of conceptions in the north is in summer ; in the south, in spring and 

 winter. 



4. Vegetable diet diminishes the number of conceptions ; the month 

 of March, in consequence of Lent, and years of scarcity, is remarkable 

 for the small number of births, and for the great diminution in the proportion 

 of males. 



3. In Paris, the higher classes have fewer children, and proportionally 

 fewer males, in winter than in summer. This circumstance coincides with 

 numerous circumstances, such as great dinners, balls, late hours, which, in 

 winter, weaken the constitution, whilst the more simple and healthy life in 

 the country during summer, permits the body to restore the forces expended 



