Thomas Beddoes to Thomas Robert Malthus, 24 February 1806
24 Feb. 1806
I beg leave to trouble you with a few queriesy, relative to a Subject touched upon in your Essay & to which I am about to advert in a medical work, which is to contain extensive observations on chronic patients. What I have to say will seem to be in opposition to certain opinions or expressions of yours. This makes me anxious, because it must create distrust of my own ideas & because the first impression will be unfavourable to me. I suspect that the whole difference between us is reducible to words; & I shd be extremely glad if it appear so to I you, provided you choose to give a few moments’ attention to the subject.
Every thing seems to prove the increase of consumption. It is probable from this that scrophula increases too – My observations here & those which I have been able to make on families from all parts of the kingdom go to prove the excessive (I dare not positively say the increased) frequency of scrophulous disorders. Of these some besides consumption are fatal – as Tabes mensenteria – lumbar abscess – some only produce protracted indisposition. Were these causes not balanced by the cessation of other diseases productive of death in infancy & early life, then births cd not have been gaining upon the deaths. But if it be true that the proportion of deaths has decreased from 1 in 35 to 1 in 40 do you think it absolutely follows that the healthiness has increased. If the people of any country taken together live longer than formerly, it may be said that they must be deemed more healthy than formerly, till the contrary is proved. But I suppose you will not affirm that longevity & healthiness are absolutely convertible terms. And if it were true that the diminution of deaths were owing to the diminution of acute disorders, longevity and unhealthiness might very well go on increasing together. And if you in your work p. 308 l. 13 & in similar passages wd consent to read ‘greater length of life’ in place of ‘a degree of healthiness much greater’ all my distress wd cease. And till the fact be made out by medical researches I have some hopes that you will consent to leave that point open.
If you do me the favour of an answer, will you be so good as say whether you will allow me to send you a couple of sheets of my book, when the printer comes to that part. It will be easy to make a few cancels – & you may save me from errors in toto, or the partial error of too great generalization or being too positive where the data are insufficient. If you wd enclose to my friend Davies Giddy Esq MP H. of Commons he wd forward yr answer I am Sir
very respectfully
your obt Sert
Thomas Beddoes
Address: The Revd T. R. Malthus / Hertford // London February the twenty / fifth 1806 / Free / Davies Giddy
Postmark: FREE / Feb 25 / 1806
MS: Kanto Gakuen University
Published: T. R. Malthus: the Unpublished Papers in the Collection of Kanto Gakuen University, vol. I, ed. John Pullen and Trevor Hughes Parry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 78–79