LAWS OF THE STERILITY OF WOMEN. 



319 



The number of abortions has been variously estimated by Graunt, Short, 

 Whitehead, and others. The number of children born dead has been the subject 

 of much investigation, among others by Jacquemier, Boudin, and Legoyt. But 

 were our information on these points very exact, it would not help us in this 

 inquiry. For our purpose, the desideratum is not the number of abortions in 

 a number of pregnancies, nor the number of children born dead in a number of 

 births, but the proportional number of married women who produce nought else 

 than abortions or dead children ; who, while not absolutely sterile, yet add none 

 to the population. Of this class of wives I know of no estimate.* I believe they 

 are few, and I leave the statement of the sterile as a near approximation to a 

 correct statement of the absolutely sterile. 



Chapter IV. — Sterility according to the Ages of Wives. 



To illustrate the variations of sterility according to age, I bring forward the 

 accompanying Table (I.). 



TABLE I. — Showing the Variations of Sterility according to the Ages 



of the Wives. 



Ages of Wives at Mar- "l 

 riage, .... J 



15-19 



20-24 25-29 



1 

 i 



30-34 



35-39 



40-44 



45-49 



50, &c. 



Total. 



Number of Wives, . 

 First Children, . . . 

 Sterile Wives, 

 Percentage Sterile, . 



700 



649 



51 



7-3 



1835 

 1905 







1120 

 809 

 311 



27-7 



402 

 251 

 151 

 37-5 



205 



96 



109 



53-2 



110 



10 



100 



90-9 



46 



2 



44 



95-6 



29 



29 

 100 



4447 



3722 



725 



16-3 



Proportion Sterile, 1 in 



13-72 







3-60 



2-66 



1-88 



1-10 



1-05 



1-00 



6-13 



With the numbers of marriages taking place in Edinburgh and Glasgow in 

 1855, at different ages of the wives, are compared the numbers of first children 

 born in the same year to wives married at the same ages in that year or pre- 

 viously. The number of sterile wives is got by subtracting the latter figures from 

 the former, and the percentage of sterile marriages is given in the penultimate 

 horizontal line. 



So far as the numbers are to be relied upon, we have from this Table the in- 

 teresting results, that about 7 per cent, of all the marriages between 15 and 19 

 years of age inclusive, and as they occur in our population, are without offspring ; 

 that those married at ages from 20 to 24 inclusive, are almost all fertile ; and 



* The following extract from the work of Dr West, on Diseases of Women (3d edit., p. 367), 

 may be of some value. It refers to the histories of a set of poor women labouring under uterine 

 cancer. " There were but two out of the whole 150 women, whose pregnancy had issued merely in 

 abortion." 



VOL. XXIV. PART II. 4 R 



