TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 127 



DEATH-BATE IN THE REGISTBAR-GENEIIAL'S DISTRICTS FOB THE YEARS 



1861 AND 1863. 



Population Deaths, 



in 1861. 1861. 1863. Increase. 



Liverpool .... 269,742 8716 9557 1141 



Manchester .. 269,741 7425 8071 646 



The Registrar-General's Report for England, ending March Slst, makes the fol- 

 lowing remarks respecting Liverpool : — " If the map of England were shaded to 

 represent the rates of mortality of last quarter in the registration districts, the eye 

 travelling from the ligliter south to the darker north would he instantly drawn to 

 a spot of portentous darkness on the Mersey ; and the question would be asked 

 whether cholera, the black death, or other plague, imported with bales of mer- 

 chandise, had been lately introduced into its busy and populous seaport. Happily 

 this has not been the case ; but fever probably developed or aided by the mild and 

 damp atmosphere of the season, and by overcrowding in an increasing population, 

 has been busy and fatal in Liverpool and in other towns of the same county, and 

 of Yorkshire. The annual mortality of the borough of Liverpool in the three 

 months was excessive, and demands immediate and earnest consideration ; it rose 

 to 4"59.3 per cent. This implies that if this death-rate were maintained for a year, 

 forty-six persons out of a thousand in the population would die in that time, or 

 fifteen more than died in Glasgow, its northern rival, and nineteen more than in 



London." 



On the Number of Graduates in Arts and Medicine at Oxford for the last tivo 

 centuries. By Dr. Daubeny, F.E.S. 



Dr. Daubeny comnumicated a statement of the number of degrees of Bachelor in 

 Arts conferred by the University of Oxford each year from the middle of the seven- 

 teenth century down to the present time, from which it would appear that the 

 increase in that respect which has taken place is by no means proportionate to the 

 progress of the countr}', in population, wealth, and intelligence. 



Amongst the causes which have led to this result, he would suggest as one, the 

 circumstance that an University education, instead of being regarded, as is the case 

 in other countries, the fitting preparation for all the liberal professions, has by us 

 been chiefly confined either to youths educated for the Church, or to those not in- 

 tended for any profession at all. 



Confining himself to the Medical Profession, he had ascertained that the number 

 of Gradutes had sunk in Oxford from about four annually to every five millions of 

 the population, which was the case two centuries ago, to less than one at the 

 present time. 



The reasons assigned for medical students so rarely resorting for their education 

 to the University, may be briefly stated as follows : — 



1. The prevailing notion, that neither professional knowledge, nor even the 

 sciences regarded as preparatory to it, can be acquired so well there as elsewhere. 



2. The large outlay which a University education is supposed to entail. 



3. The necessity imposed upon the student of devoting the greater part of his 

 time during his residence to the dead languages, thus throwing back pm'suits of a 

 more professional character to a later period of life than that at which they are 

 commenced elsewhere. 



4. The danger of acquiring habits and tastes incompatible with the successful 

 career of a medical man, from daily intercourse with a class of youths intended for 

 difi"erent walks in life. 



Now the first of these obstacles has been removed, so far as relates to the preli- 

 minai-y studies, by the recent establishment in Oxford of a staff" of Professors as 

 efficient, and of means and appliances for the prosecution of Chemistrj% Anatomy, 

 and the like, as ample, as are to be found in any other rival institution, whilst with 

 regard to studies purely professional, it is conceived that they can be best acquired 

 after the preliminary ones are fully mastered, and may therefore be reserved with 

 advantage till the time when the necessary residence in the University has been 

 completed. 



Secondly, that the large sum supposed to be required for an Oxford education, 



