Classical Works

Bacon, Francis, 1561-1626
History natural and experimental, of life and death : Or of the prolongation of life. Written in Latine by the Right Honourable Francis Lord Verulam, Vis-count Saint Alban.
London : Printed for William Lee, and Humphrey Moseley, 1658. The eighth edition, whereunto is added, Articles of enquiry touching metals and minerals.

Historia vitae et mortis, deals with the prolongation of life which Francis Bacon thought was one of the highest aims of the new science, and one which might recover man from the Fall. The work catalogues data on factors governing durability of living and inanimate things, and mortality in living ones. It is regarded as proto-statistical, foreshadowing the work of John Graunt and William Petty on the bills of mortality and the development of political arithmetick.

Wing B329