A contribution to the medical statistics of life assurance with hints on the selection of lives / by John Mann.

  • Mann, John.
Date:
1865
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A contribution to the medical statistics of life assurance with hints on the selection of lives / by John Mann. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    3/206
    PREFACE. General Statistics set forth a rule deduced from observa- tions upon all ages and all classes of the community. Medical Statistics, on the other hand, deal with groups or classes of lives vsrhich are, more or less, exceptions to the general rule. General Statistics w^ill not be correct in their application to individual lives, although they may present a true average of the community. Medical Statistics, in like manner, do not give a true measure of the life of the individual, but they point out those classes, or groups of lives which rise above, or fall below, the general average. Medical Statistics can be raised above the regions of con- jecture only by a careful observation and study of groups of facts upon a large scale. The personal experience of the most experienced and accurate observer rests on too narrow a basis. It is, therefore, desirable to enlarge that experience by facts derived from a wider field of observation than can fall under the notice of any individual; and also to extend it over a longer space of time than the continuance of one generation. The first attempt at publishing from Life Assurance experience such groups or separate classes of facts, distributed according to the number of distinct causes of Death, was made by Dr. Begbie, of Edinburgh, in a Report embracing 30 years of the experience of the Scottish Widows' Fund Life Assurance Company, in January, 1847, in the Edin-