VOL. LXXVI.] I»HILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. ]23 



What those adventitious causes are, or how this particular debility is produced 

 and operates, are questions which appear highly interesting and curious. Dr. 

 C. had therefore been at considerable pains to examine and arrange a very accu- 

 rate and extensive registry in such a manner as he hoped would throw some light 

 on these questions. As it is to the accuracy of modern registers that we are ori- 

 ginally indebted for our knowledge of the facts in question, he apprehends, it is 

 from the same source only that we shall be enabled satisfactorily to explain them. 

 Of the registry inclosed he observes, that it had been kept from its commence- 

 ment by a man of uncommon accuracy, one of the under-clerks of our House 

 of Commons; and that as the poor women and their children are obliged to pass 

 through his office, before leaving the hospital, his situation is such that there is 

 no likelihood of his being deceived. It exhibits the occurences of 28 years in 

 above 20,000 instances; a number which he was inclined to think could hardly 

 appear insufficient for establishing some general inferences and conclusions on a 

 tolerably sure foundation. Though his reasoning on these matters should not 

 appear very conclusive, or his calculations perfectly accurate, yet he flattered 

 himself, that the facts would neither be unacceptable nor useless. 



He believes it may be safely asserted, that anatomy has not hitherto detected 

 any internal difference between the animal economy of the male and female, 

 which can be supposed to account for their difference of mortality, more especi- 

 ally in early infancy; and this is the period during which the chances are much 

 the greatest against male life. It is a matter of common observation that males^ 

 caeteris paribus, grow to a greater size than females, both in utero and every sub- 

 sequent period of their growth. Consequently they must meet with more diffi- 

 culty, and endure more hardship and fatigue, in the hour of birth. Accord- 

 ingly, practitioners in midwifry, taught by experience, know that when any con- 

 siderable difficulty occurs in the birth of a child, for example in all the different 

 kinds of preternatural labours, they stand a much better chance of saving the 

 life of a female than of a male. It is on this principle we can explain what our 

 registry concurs with others in proving, viz. that near one-half more males than 

 females are still-born. Naturalists are agreed, that the head of the human foetus 

 is larger in proportion to its body than that of any other animal; and he believes 

 it is certain, that no animal whatever brings forth its young with so much diffi- 

 culty, pain, and danger, as a woman. Now as we know tliat the head contains 

 one of the most important organs of the body to life, it is highly reasonable 

 to suppose, that any additional injury which it sustains in delivery may produce 

 very material effects on the whole system. These effects^ though often, may 

 not be always immediate. They may operate in weakening the male constitution 

 so as to render it more apt to be affected by any exciting cause of disease soon 

 after birth, and less able to struggle against it. It may be asked, how tliis will 



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