306 _. Observations on Bills of Mortality. 
Art. V.— Observations on Bills of Mortality, witha seneal for 
their improvement ; by James Mease, M. D., &c.- 
T nave had for many years the subject of the longevity of the 
people of the United States under consideration, and have made 
large collections of the deaths of our citizens throughout the 
Union who reached the age of eighty years, with the view of 
showing, as I hope to show, that the chances for long life are as 
great in ‘the United States as in Lay Sea country, whatever 
pe copay. my. idea of a 
seventy as my sn es Alan see I think that any’ climate 
which permits a human being to attain that age, may. justly be 
termed healthy, and we know that where one person is’ capable 
of rendering him or herself eran wage age, eg Wi 
do little more than vegetate.* =~ 
Being otherwise engaged at present, I cannot enter fly on 
this subject, and shall therefore merely state the principle aapon 
which I intend to form my oo, and suggest an ‘improve- 
ment in the bills of mortalit 
The true object of publishing. the bills of mortality is, ii 
to enable any inquirer to ascertain the comparative healthi 
some city or locality with others in different parts of the cae ot 
in a foreign country, (the population being. the. same, ) » and sec- 
ondly, to inform us of the diseases peculiar. to either, or of t 
general nature, that they may be compared with those in other 
places at home or abroad... Now a just estimate of these objects 
of inquiry cannot be formed in the United States atleast, by re 
oe OF tee janes eae in the bills, deaths from every 
ane tite I have ais ttiong,: that no death ee — 
PRS aa reescore and ten, and if by. reason of 8 
‘they be fourscore years, yet is their stren; labor and sorrow.” Psalms, xO 
