|
|
Article: Graunt, John
- Article from:
- Encyclopedia of Public Health
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 The Gale Group Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
GRAUNT, JOHN
Like many of his literate and well-educated contemporaries, John Graunt (1620
–
1674), a London merchant and haberdasher, was an amateur scientist. He was a member of the small community of scholars who were early Fellows of the Royal Society, which was founded by King Charles II just as Graunt reached his years of greatest creativity. Graunt was interested in the fluctuations in epidemics, especially the plague, and how these caused the numbers of deaths, and the age at death, to vary from one year to another. For over one hundred years English parishes had kept records of baptisms and deaths, and what was then under-stood about causes of death was derived from these ...