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Chap. VIII.
Proportion of the Sexes.
243

Faye states "that in some districts of Norway there has been during a decennial period a steady deficiency of boys, whilst in others the opposite condition has existed." In France during forty-four years the male to the female births have been as 106.2 to 100; but during this period it has occurred five times in one department, and six times in another, that the female births have exceeded the males. In Russia the average proportion is as high as 108.9, and in Philadelphia in the United States as 110.5 to 100.[1] The average for Europe, deduced by Bickes from about seventy million births, is 106 males to 100 females. On the other hand, with white children born at the Cape of Good Hope, the proportion of males is so low as to fluctuate during successive years between 90 and 99 males for every 100 females. It is a singular fact that with Jews the proportion of male births is decidedly larger than with Christians: thus in Prussia the proportion is as 113, in Breslau as 114, and in Livonia as 120 to 100; the Christian births in these countries being the same as usual, for instance, in Livonia as 104 to 100.[2]

Prof. Faye remarks that "a still greater preponderance of males would be met with, if death struck both sexes in equal proportion in the womb and during birth. But the fact is, that for every 100 still-born females, we have in several countries from 134.6 to 144.9 still-born males. During the first four or five years of life, also, more male children die than females; for example in England, during the first year, 126 boys die for every 100 girls—a proportion which in France is still more unfavourable."[3] Dr. Stockton-Hough accounts for these facts in part by the more frequent defective development of males than of females. We have before seen that the male sex is more

  1. For Norway and Russia, see abstract of Prof. Faye's researches, in 'British and Foreign Medico-Chirurg. Review,' April, 1867, pp. 343, 345. For France, the 'Annuaire pour l'An 1867,' p. 213. For Philadelphia, Dr. Stockton-Hough, 'Social Science Assoc.' 1874. For the Cape of Good Hope, Quetelet as quoted by Dr. H. H. Zouteveen, in the Dutch translation of this work (vol. i. p. 417), where much information is given on the proportion of the sexes.
  2. In regard to the Jews, see M. Thury, 'La Loi de Production des Sexes,' 1863, p. 25.
  3. 'British and Foreign Medico-Chirurg. Review,' April, 1867, p. 343. Dr. Stark also remarks ('Tenth Annual Reports of Births, Deaths, &c., in Scotland,' 1867, p. xxviii.) that "These examples may suffice to show that, at almost every stage of life, the males in Scotland have a greater liability to death and a higher death-rate than the females. The fact, however, of this peculiarity being most strongly developed at that infantile period of life when the dress, food, and general treatment of both sexes are alike, seems to prove that the higher male death-rate is an impressed, natural, and constitutional peculiarity due to sex alone."