36 ]\I. Chalcauneiif's Report on Vaccination. [Jax. 



but just to take into the account the combination of these last cir- 

 cumstances, and to appreciate the influence which they must have had, 

 conjointly with vaccination, upon the lives of children and the march 

 of population. The consequence of the ameliorated condition of the 

 industrious and labouring classes, has been not only an augmentation 

 of the population, but it has also led to an increase of the average 

 duration of life. The lists of mortality recently published all show, 

 that the number of individuals who attain to the age of sixty is much 

 greater now than it was formerly. The increase is in the proportion 

 of 25 in 100, instead of 141 in 100, for Paris; and 24^ in 100, instead 

 of 14f , for the rest of France. It may not be uninteresting to men- 

 tion, though not immediately attached to the subject of this memoir, 

 that in consequence of the prolongation of the average duration of life, 

 as found by the recent lists of mortality, all tontine and life insur- 

 ance societies, and in a word, all species of establishments speculating 

 upon the duration of man's existence, founded within the last ten 

 years, and which have based their calculations upon the tables of Messrs. 

 Devillard and Deparieux, must necessarily, from the increase in the average 

 duration of life that has taken place, find themselves under the impos- 

 sibility of fulfilling their engagements. Indeed, such has been the case 

 already with more than one of them. Amongst many interesting facts 

 stated in this memoir, the following are remarkable. Before a refor- 

 mation had been introduced into the Hotel Dieu, one fifth of the 

 patients died, a mortality nearly twice as great as that which took place 

 in the other hospitals in the kingdom. The deaths in the Hotel Dieu, 

 amounted every year to 3,000, which is something more than an eighth 

 of the whole number of deaths in Paris. At present, from the many 

 improvements and ameliorations that have been effected, the mortality 

 is not greater than one in seven. It was at the Hotel Dieu alone that 

 poor pregnant women went to lie-in : there, amidst a complication of 

 human misery and infection, 1,400 of these unfortunate women were 

 annually received. It often happened that one bed contained four of 

 them in the hours of labour. The mortality, as it may be well supposed, 

 was appalling, amounting in many instances to one-half the number. 

 At present, at an admirably conducted institution, called L' Hospice dc 

 la Maternite, there are about 3,000 pregnant women annually received, 

 of whom somewhat less than one in thirty perishes. From the reports 

 of the council of public health, printed every year, it incontestibly 

 appears, that the measures adopted by that administration to extinguish 

 syphilitic disease, have been most successful. During the last twenty- 

 five years it has diminished in the following progression. In 1800, one 

 in nine of the women of the town was infected. 



In 1812 one in 2i 



1817 one in 34 



1819 one in 43 



1820 one in .50 



1821 one in 51 



1822 one in 54 



In those parts of Paris inhabited by the richer classes, one-sixth of 

 the children die the first year ; while, in the quarters occupied by the 

 poor, one third of the children die before the end of the year. Before 

 five years, more than one-half of the children of the poor perish ; while 

 the loss among those of the rich does not amount to one-third. In fine. 



