The first to construct correct life tables

DEPARCIEUX, Antoine.

Essai sur les Probabilités de la Durée de la Vie Humaine.

Paris: H.L. Guerin & L.F. Delatour, 1746.

1st Edition. Hardcover. Fine. Item #101646

Essai sur les Probabilités de la Durée de la Vie Humaine; d'où l'on déduit la maniere de déterminer les Rentes viageres, tant simples qu'en Tontines: Précédé d'une courte Explication sur les Rentes à terme, ou Annuités... Paris: Guerin Bros., 1746. Finely engraved arms in vignette at head of dedication. 22 Tables in the text. vi, [2], 132, [32], i-xxii, [1] pp. [bound with]: IDEM. Addition a l'Essai sur les Probabilités de la Durée de la Vie humaine... avec quelques Listes ou Ordres de mortalité du genre humaine. Paris: H.L. Guerin & L.F. Delatour, 1760. [5], 5-32 pp., 1 folding table. [bound with]: (-). [Drop-title]: Objections faites à M. Deparceiux... sur son Livre des Probabilités de la durée de la vie humaine; avec les réponses à ces objections. 16 pp. Large 4to. [Paris: 1746]. Large 4to. (258 x 192 mm), contemporary mottled calf, spine nicely gilt, red morocco lettering piece to spine, marbled endpapers, red edges (top cover hinge cracked but tight, corners bumped). Interior bright, clean and unfoxed, first and last blanks present. A beautiful, wide margined copy in very good condition, the principal work printed on strong paper. Complete. ---

Coquelin et Guillaumin, I, p. 550 ; Einaudi, 1529 ; Garrison-Morton, 1691.1, Smith, History of Mathematics, II, p. 530; D.S.B., IV, pp. 38-39. - One of the First Statistical Works of its Kind. First editions, complete with the exceedingly rare Addition published fourteen years later, and very pretty copies of this notable works in the history of statistics bound together. Deparcieux (1703-68), was a maker of sundials at Paris and the author of several other interesting mathematical works. "After long investigations of tontines, individual families, and religious communities, Deparcieux published his results in the famous Essai sur les probablités..., one of the first statistical works of its kind. It consists of treatises on annuities, mortality, and life annuities. Deparcieux showed a real progress in his theoretical explanation of the properties of the tables of mortality. His tables were for a long time the only ones on life expectancies in France, - "Deparcieux was the first to construct correct life tables." Smith, History of Mathematics, II, p. 530.

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