own army, that, while its regulations and practice improperly tend to make an exclusive military class of the soldiers and inferior officers, to sever them from both present and future civil occupations, they make the service not a profession in the true sense of the word in its higher offices, where professional devotion and special intellectual attainments are really needed. Of this, one example is that an officer of the scientific branches. of the army rarely obtains a principal command; the reason being that the class who have long engrossed the principal commands, and established the rules and practices with respect to promotion, are a class by no means given to intellectual studies, or commonly found in branches of the service which require them. The contempt for science shows itself again in the treatment of the medical profession, the members of which, encountering all the dangers and hardships of war, and at the same time requiring superior intellectual endowments, ought, as a matter of good economy as well as of justice, to be liberally compensated with honours and rank as well as adequate pay.

We must not close our remarks on the re-organization of the army without some reference to the plan which Colonel Reilly ably advocates of establishing, as in Prussia, a local connexion between districts and particular corps of all arms :—

'The line regiment of the county, its reserve battalions, the militia regiment and the volunteers, thus mutually supporting, would form a body bound together by close connexion and professional ties. The whole of the forces, regulars, yeomanry, militia, etc., in every military district, should be combined in a division, under a proper staff. Occasions should be taken when the whole might be exercised together. Every one in the county would feel his own credit and honour involved in those of the regiment of his county. Young men fond of adventure could join the regiment. At home or abroad they would feel they were honouring themselves by volunteering for such duties. That they were going amongst neighbours and friends would be an additional inducement to do so.'

That such an arrangement would have its tendency to increase the supply of recruits, to raise the patriotic spirit and temper of the people of each district, and to promote the movement between the army and the civil community which we have advocated (and which the general training of the youth of the country to arms would still further promote), we incline to believe. To diffuse and maintain a general spirit of high patriotism through the people in the times that are coming, requires, however, more than mere military measures and reforms. The system which General Scharnhorst introduced into Prussia would have had little success, if unaccompanied by the measures

by which Stein and Hardenberg elevated the condition of the great body of the people, and bound their affection to their .country.

'At the commencement of the nineteenth century,' says the writer of a recent and instructive essay, the population (of Prussia) was so little attached to existing institutions that they fell to pieces on the first attack of the invaders. . . . What gave the victory to Prussia in 1866 was not a mere mechanical invention, but the force of her social institutions, and not least, of her reformed land legislation. Sixty years ago her agricultural population was divided into two hostile classes, one class exclusively representing property and exercising dominion, the other submissive without respect. The Prussian statesmen of that day had the courage to be just and wise, setting a noble example, which has been followed throughout nearly the whole of Germany. Their successors have reaped the advantage of their policy."

Great Britain ought, in like manner, to be able to say to every class of her citizens, Spartam sortitus es, hanc orna. To the measures necessary to that end, no less than to military reforms, the maxim of General Trochu applies: C'est la paix, utilisée comme il convient, qui fait des bonnes armées.' Great Britain has at this moment only too many citizens who in war would be a formidable enemy within her gates.

1 Prussia and Ireland. By Henry Dix Hutton.

[NOTE. While this article is passing through the press, we observe that a new Bill for the Reorganization of the Army has been laid before the French Legislature, in which it is proposed that the conscript's period of service in the Active army should be five years, with four years more in the Reserve; but this change, if finally adopted, will not alter the system substantially, or remove the objections to it urged in this paper.]

ART. VI. Fecundity, Fertility, and Sterility. By Dr. MATTHEWS DUNCAN. 8vo. Edinburgh, 1867.

THE book which we are about to review is not a medical work, but a treatise on statistics referring to the topics named in the title. These statistics have been compiled and arranged with much care, and are handled by the author with acuteness and without prejudice. The book may therefore be read with pleasure and advantage by all who take an interest in the physical laws affecting the natural history of man and his social welfare. The title may perhaps repel some over-squeamish readers, but there is nothing coarse in the book, and we attribute to false shame, rather than to modesty, the feeling which would banish from discussion all facts connected with the birth of children. Many of these facts men, and women too, ought to know, and we are heartily glad to find a work containing much information without unpleasant medical details.

The statistician, economist, physiologist, and doctor are allowed to feel an interest in the fertility and fecundity of the human race; but may not simple men and women consider what family they may probably have, and what risk of death awaits the woman at each successive childbirth? Few subjects can more affect their welfare, but after perusal of Dr. Duncan's book we perceive that few subjects have received less attention, and he will be the first to admit that the information he has gleaned is incomplete, though he has spared no pains in analysing the limited number of facts observed and recorded.

The main data used by him are obtained from the Register of Births in Edinburgh and Glasgow in the year 1855. He seems to know all about 16,301 wives whose children were registered in that year, and very properly regrets that an alteration in the schedule to be filled up by mothers prevented his and our acquiring equally complete information about those same and other wives in subsequent years. It is poor consolation to think that the alteration must have been agreeable to sixteen thousand and odd wives, for, seeing how very much has been extracted from the registration in one year, and how very much remains unknown, we do wish the 1855 form had been retained, troublesome though it was. If women, as child-bearers, suffer remediable hardships, they must furnish the data by which the grievances may be proved. The suffering attending pregnancy and childbirth is so great, and affects so many persons, that great value must be set on statistics showing the circumstances under which least suffering is entailed and least risk run, and women may fairly be compelled to give the information which is required

for their own good. Much folly has been talked about the rights of women, but those who most oppose the assumption by women of the parts now played by men should in consistency grant wives the right to bear and rear children with the least possible risk and labour. Who will dare to say that this condition obtains ?

Dr. Duncan's book contains much information as to the risk entailed by marriage; but this information is still incomplete. The rough comparisons usually made between the deaths among single and married women of the same age tell us nothing, for married women belong to what an insurance company calls a class of selected lives. A presumption exists that men will on the whole choose healthy, well-to-do women, rejecting the sickly, deformed, poverty-stricken, and vicious, whose deaths cannot fairly be set off against those of the bride in childbirth. Even from the full registration of 1855, Dr. Duncan can extract nothing as to the additional risk supposed to be entailed by rapid child-bearing. It is probable that some interval between successive children entails less risk than any other, and, if so, this interval should be known.

We may, indeed, be told that if we had the knowledge we crave we could not use it, but must let nature take its course. Let us know the facts before giving a decision on this point. We do not let nature take its course even now, but throw impediments in the way of excessive production by the civil obligations imposed by marriage laws, and these obligations are sanctioned by the highest morality. Let us first learn the facts accurately, and we may then consider how far they are or may be under our control.

Dr. Duncan gives some of the facts on which our reasoning must be based; for instance, his tables conclusively show the great rapidity with which young married women will probably bear children. Let us defer further consideration of the moral aspect of the question, and examine critically the facts he lays before us. The meaning of the terms 'fecundity' and 'fertility' must be first explained.

The fertility of a woman, or of a mass of women, is measured by the number of children born to that woman, or mass of women. We may speak of the past fertility, the future fertility, or the fertility during a given period of a mass of women; these several fertilities will be measured by the number of children born to the women during the periods named. We may speak of the fertility of all the women in a given population, of the wives only, or of the mothers only; the same number may measure the fertility in the three cases, but the mean fertility of women, wives, and mothers will differ, inasmuch as the number by

Definition of the terms Fecundity' and 'Fertility.

443

which the total fertility must be divided will differ in the three cases. The quality is in every case mensurable, and may, therefore, be the subject of exact knowledge. When a woman is called fertile, we mean that she has children; a very fertile woman has many children. Dr. Duncan further uses the term 'persistently fertile' to express the fact that the women in particular tables have had children during the year in which the statistics as to their families have been collected; he also uses the words 'intensely fertile' occasionally, to express the fact that a given mass of women have a great many children per annum, or in a given time.

The fecundity of women is measured by the same number as would measure the intensity of their fertility, or by the number of children they bear per annum; and it would perhaps be better to avoid the expression of intense fertility altogether, even when applied to a mass of women, some of whom may be sterile, or not subject to the conditions necessary for child-bearing. In one sense, women who are capable of bearing children might be termed fecund, but Dr. Duncan's measurements of fecundity are necessarily drawn from those women only who are subject to the conditions required for child-bearing. The woman of unit fertility is the woman who has or will have one child. The woman of unit fecundity might be defined as the woman who, subject to the necessary conditions, has or will have one child per annum. The above definitions are not quite the same as those given by Dr. Duncan, but they approach very closely to those given by Professor Tait, who has contributed a very valuable section to Dr. Duncan's work. Professor Tait says, 'By fecundity at a given age, we mean the probability that, during the lapse of one year of married life at that age, pregnancy producing a living child will ensue.' This definition will correspond with that given above, if in one average year of married life be included the average number of months of pregnancy; but there would be a difference of nine months between the ages at which fecundity as defined by Professor Tait and by us would be identical. We think the new definition preferable, because Dr. Duncan's tables give the ages at childbirth, not those at pregnancy. Of course, our definition would frequently give a fraction, such as 0.56 of a child per annum, as a measure of fecundity of each one of a given group of women. Those who find this idea difficult to grasp may think of fecundity, as inversely proportional to the interval of time between successive children: the woman who has a child once in two years is twice as fecund as she who has a child once in four years; the fecundity of the first is 0.5; of the second, 0.25.