Demography in Early America: Beginnings of the Statistical Mind, 1600-1800

Abstract

We now take for granted that the statistical treatment of social and scientific affairs can yield important insights. In this book, Dr. Cassedy, from the History of Medicine Division of the National Library of Medicine, describes the introduction of vital statistics in the United States before 1800. In quick progression he discusses the role of numbers in the religious and secular affairs of the early colonists, the census, bills of mortality, life expectancy figures, and the statistical approach to disease. The growth of colonial America, Cassedy concludes, coincided with the emergence of new statistical concepts in Europe. Without much lag-time these early statistical activities also found application in the thinking of Americans. Even so, by the end of the book, one must still conclude, as Cassedy does, that two centuries of statistical activities had not really brought Americans very far beyond a simple quantitative way of looking at things. The