We may get some idea of the state of public health during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries by a reference to the families of monarchs. The difficulty of rearing children was very largely experienced in royal families. I have, by the help of Burke’s “Peerage,” made a list of all the children of monarchs (other than those who ascended the throne) whose ages at death are given by that genealogist. This difficulty of rearing children, which began in the reign of Edward III., becomes very marked with the reign of Henry VIII., who, as we are told by Froude, was disappointed by a succession of still-born children borne to him by his first wife. Of the children of James I., three out of five died under 3; of the children of Charles I., the ages at death were 29, 26, 20, 15, 4, 1; of eleven children of James II., by two wives, one (the old Pretender) attained the age of 78, and of another the age is doubtful, but eight died under 4, and two others died at 11 and 15; of the six children of Anne, one reached the age of 11, and the remaining six died under 1 year. With the accession of George I. this difficulty of rearing royal families appears to have ceased, having been more or less marked during the reigns of 21 monarchs, intervening between Edward III. and George I. What the cause may have been I will not discuss, but I mention the fact because it is probable that causes which affected kings affected subjects also. There can be no doubt that down to the commencement of the present century London was a veritable fever-bed, the causes of death being largely malarial fever, spotted or typhus fever, plague, small-pox, measles, scarlet fever, and whooping-cough, the two latter being comparatively recent introductions. THE LONDON “DEATH RATE.” The present writers on London, like their predecessors, are loud in its praises and blind to its defects, and they point to a figure which is called “the death-rate,” and ask us to accept it as evidence that the state of public health in London is as good as can be. It is quite true that the death-rate of London is low, and that it is not much in excess of the country at large, and is very much below that of some of the big towns scattered through the kingdom. Nevertheless, before we accept this figure and rest contented with it, we must take several facts into consideration. 1. The London of the Registrar-General is very extensive, and no small part of it is rural or semi-rural in character. Many of the dwellers in Lewisham, Wandsworth, Fulham, Hampstead, Hackney, Greenwich, Camberwell, and Woolwich, can hardly be looked upon as dwellers in a city, and it must be remembered that the death-rates in these districts, which contain only from 40 to 8 persons to an acre, tend very materially to reduce the death-rate of the whole town.