Thomas Beddoes to the Editors of The Medical and Physical Journal, 7 June 1801
GENTLEMEN,
In no inquisitive age has there existed a moment more favourable than the present for illustrating a great physiological problem; I mean the influence of the condition of parents on the number and condition of the progeny. One cannot help fearing that, in consequence of the long and severe scarcity, a degradation of the species, partially begun in certain manufactories, will become general and permanent among us.
The political oeconomist will attend to the proportion of births and marriages during this most disastrous period. The medical philosopher will look more closely into the subject. Nor will any thing short of a body of information concerning the state of new-born infants satisfy him. Without stopping therefore to demonstrate the propriety of the investigation, I propose to those who have opportunities of observation the following queries:
1. Have the children of the poor of late come into the world more puny, meagre, or smaller, than in more plentiful times?
2. Have they appeared to die in greater numbers shortly after birth and with what preceding symptoms?
I also wish to know,
3. Whether miscarriages have been more frequent among this class? and,
4. Whether the mothers have recovered more slowly, and been subject to greater losses of blood?
Thomas Beddoes
June 7, 1801.
Published: The Medical and Physical Journal, 6 (June 1801), 24–25