Hamish Riley-Smith

GRAUNT,Capt. John Natural and Political Observations Mentioned in a following Index, and made upon the Bills of Mortality. With reference to the Government, Religion, Trade, Growth, Air, Diseases, and the several changes of the said City. The Fifth Edition, much Enlarged. London John Martyn 1676

Small octavo, antique style quarter calf and marbled boards, spine lettered gilt, (20) + 150pp, 2 folding tables, paper flaw on L1, paper tear in second table repaired, some light browning.

Rare. Wing G1602. Keynes, Bibliography of Sir William Petty, no.73. Kress 1411. Goldsmith 2156. Pearson, The History of Statistics pp.10-48. Greenwood, Medical statistics from Graunt to Farr, pp.27-40. See Printing & the Mind of Man 144 [first edition of 1662]..Fifth edition of the first study of vital statistics - the edition believed to have been edited by Sir William Petty. First printed in 1662, followed by another edition in 1662, and two in 1665 - all editions are rare. The much enlarged refers in this edition to the four leaves pp.141-146 being Some further observations of Major John Graunt relating to the City of Paris…“The application of critical scientific methods to medical and vital statistics, which underlies so much of modern government and economics, can be traced back to John Graunt’s remarkable book”. Printing & the Mind of ManThe book is the first statistical analysis of social and medical data, and thus the birth of the science of demography, a landmark in the history of statistics, economics and life assurance. In this historic work Graunt implicitly accepts the stability of statistical ratios, but he is also wholly unconscious of the probable errors of small random samples. He determines the population of Dublin, London and Paris and makes the first attempt at a life-table in considering what army could be raised in London on the supposition that 107 males exist for 100 males. Graunt was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in recognition of his work. The Keynes Bibliography of Petty discusses in detail from page 75 the controversy of whether Petty or Graunt was the author of this work.

£2450

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