On the Discovery of the Law of Human Mortality, and on the antecedent partial Discoveries of Dr. Price and Mr. Gompertz

Extract

In the year 1832 there was published, in my name, an extensive collection of Life Tables, founded upon the discovery of the law which, in my belief, governs the mortality, according to age, of all nations and classes of men, from the earliest infancy to extreme old age. In these tables the numbers living or surviving at successive ages have been deduced from a simple formula expressing the proportion of survivors at any age in terms of the mortality. They are the first Tables of this kind ever published, and they have been used daily in the practice of life assurance, and in the valuation of life contingencies, for a period of thirty-two years, including four years before publication.