Mortality of Male Children. 
additional injury which it fuftains in delivery olay produce very 
material effefcs on the whole fyftenti. Thefe effedh though 
often may not be always immediate. They may operate in 
weakening the male conftitution fo as to render it more apt 
to be affedted by any exciting caufe of difeafe foon after birth, 
and lefs able to ftruggle againft it. It may be allied, how this 
will apply to the difference of mortality in great towns and 
country fituations ? The anfwer evidently is, that in great 
towns rickets, fcrophula, and other difeafes affeffing the bones, 
and producing confequent mal- conformation of the female fex, 
are more frequent than in healthy country fituations. 
There is another circumftance, Sir, which rpay have fome 
influence in producing that particular debility which you men- 
tion. It is this: as the ftamina of the male are naturally con- 
ftituted to grow to a greater fize, a greater fupply of nourifti- 
ment in utero will be neceflary to his growth than to that of a 
female. Defeats in this particular, proceeding from delicacy 
of conftitution or difeafes of the mother, muft of courfe be 
more injurious to the male fex. And although the male chil- 
dren may be fo lucky as to efcape abortion and the perils of 
delivery, it is probable, that they will be more apt to languifh 
"under difeafe, or die at fome future period, from the applica- 
tion of noxious caufes to an originally half-ftarved frame. To 
4. perfon little accuftomed to confider phyfiological fubje&s, 
this reafoning may appear fomewhat obfcure. It may, per- 
haps, be fomewhat illuftrated by cenfidering that nourifhment 
-of the foetus after birth which nature has provided for. Sup- 
<pofe every mother in a great city obliged to fuckle and nurfe 
her own child, without the afiiftance of fpoon-meat ; and every 
mother in the adjacent country to do the fame. Of the former 
-there would not perhaps be one good nurfe in fve; and of the 
Vol, LXXVL A a a latter, 
