Mortality differentials in France during the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

"The very high quality of a set of marriage records for Paris during the 1860s made it possible to apply indirect methods to estimate adult mortality differentials by certain geographical and social criteria of the 19th century. The largest differences between groups were observed to be social, geographical origin apparently having little impact.... It is interesting that social differences in adult mortality are similar in magnitude to those observed today. Perhaps the principal factor of differentiation is then the level of child mortality.... It is by no means necessary to have a set of data as complete as ours. The indirect methods we have used proved largely adequate for estimating mortality differentials." excerpt