Chapter One
Introduction
1.1 HISTORICAL NOTES
In the middle of the seventeenth century John Graunt, a
haberdasher by trade, started to collect and tabulate the
information included in the Bills of Mortality published weekly at
that time in London. This work, probably done in collaboration with
Sir William Petty, appeared in 1662 and contained a demographic
summary of causes of death in England and Wales. As a result,
John Graunt was elected a member of the Royal Society at the
recommendation of King Charles II, not a small feat considering the
hierarchical structure of the society existent at the time. In 1693,
the famous astronomer, Edmund Halley, developed the concept
of life tables in a format not unlike that used today in survival
analysis. His data were based on the register ...
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