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XXXIV. — On the Variations of the Fertility and Fecundity of Women according 

 to Age. By J. Matthews Duncan, M.D. 



(Read 2d May 1864.) 



In 1855, when the systematic registration of births in Scotland was estab- 

 hshed, the schedule used exacted from the public a variety of interesting details 

 in connection with each return, — a circumstance which gives to the registers for 

 that year an extraordinary value. For, in consequence, I believe, of numerous 

 complaints regarding the irksome labour of filling up the document, it was dis- 

 continued, and a much less comprehensive schedule has been in use ever since. 

 It is from the registers of births for 1855 that I have extracted almost all the 

 data which have yielded the results I am now about to communicate. Similar 

 data cannot be found in the subsequent registers. The great value of these 

 registers has been distinctly pointed out by Dr Stark, the able assistant to the 

 Registrar-General. I must here acknowledge, with grateful thanks, the assist- 

 ance and encouragement I have received from Mr Seton and other officials of 

 the Register-House. 



The exigencies of time, labour, and expense, constrained me to restrict the 

 number of births to be operated on within moderate limits; and I selected 

 Edinburgh and Glasgow, with their 16,593 children legitimately born in 1855, 

 as the field of operations. It is needless to enter fully upon the reasons of my 

 selecting the conditions of legitimate birth in Edinburgh and Glasgow ; my only 

 object was to secure as much as possible of accuracy and completeness in the 

 filling up of the schedules. It must be noted, that legitimate births, as registered, 

 include only births of living children at the full term of pregnancy or near it. 



The well-known difficulty of handling statistics without infringement of the 

 rules of logic has made me be very cautious in my progress in this investigation, 

 and I am all the more bound to be careful, because it will be necessary, in con- 

 nection with my present topic, to point out great errors made by authors who 

 have entered upon it. But although I trust no fault will be found with my 

 mode of reasoning, I have to admit the existence of some comparatively few and 

 unimportant errors in the details given in the registers. The chief of these will 

 be stated in connection with the tables to be brought forward. So far as I know 

 the errors are all in the original registers; in the elaboration of the details thence 

 derived, I have spared nothing that could insure accuracy ; and must here men- 



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