Bills of Mortality, &c. - 43 



burdens on the town. Every second, third, fourth, or fifth 

 year the bills may be collected into a volume and pub- 

 lished, under the direction of two or more physicians, with 

 observations on the state of the weather, the prevalence of 

 epidemic diseases, their symptoms and method of cure, 

 and the increase or decrease of population during that 

 period. Such a work will afford the most important in- 

 struction to the public ; and from the profits of it, a fund 

 may be established for the benefit of the clerks, and the 

 support of the institution. 



* N.B. — It is obvious that the plan here proposed is not 

 local, and that it may be executed with equal facility and 

 advantage in every town and parish in the kingdom. Bills 

 of Mortality might be rendered more useful in a political 

 view, by taking sometimes the number of houses and in- 

 habitants, under and above particular ages, wherever such 

 registers are established.' 



In connection with this paper there is printed in Dr. 

 Percival's Collected Works, vol. iii. p. 438, a communication 

 by the Rev. Mr. Dade of York, which gives something of the 

 history of ideas on the subject and the condition of the 

 question when Dr. Percival took it up ; but people must 

 search elsewhere for the full details of its growth, which 

 would lead us almost into a history of civilisation. How- 

 ever, Mr. Dade's paper may follow Dr. Percival's here, as in 

 the original. 



