This book examines the pre-history of statistics in eighteenth-century England and France, before state governments and other i nstitutions began to collect statistical data on a regular basis. Eighteenth-century political and medical arithmeticians developed a variety of useful techniques to measure health and population. This book highlights the history of numerical tables, as new scientific instruments, and explains how they were used to evaluate smallpox inoculations, the health and size of populations.
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