FARR, WILLIAM. - THE USE OF SCHEUTZ'S THIRD DIFFERENTIAL ENGINE.

On the Construction of Life-Tables, illustrated by a New Life-Table of the Healthy Districts of England. Received March 17, - Read April 7, 1859.

(London, Taylor and Francis, 1859). 4to. No wrappers as extracted from "Philosophical Transactions" 1859 - Vol. 149 - Part II. With the titlepage to Part II. Pp. 837-878, 1 folded engraved plate, tables in the text. The plate slightly browned. It includes 1 typeset by the Scheutz calculator.Clean and fine.

First appearance of a pioneer paper in statistical calculations of life-expectations., containing THE VERY FIRST APPLICATION OF A DIFFERENCE ENGINE TO MEDICAL STATISTICS.

"Farr's preliminary report (the paper offered), describing the use of the Scheutz Engine no. 3 to prepare life tables, was published 5 years before his "English Life Table". Farr, a pioneer in the quantitative study of morbidity and mortality, was chief statistician of the General Register Office, Englands central statistical office. Influenced by Babbage, he had long been interested in the use of a calculating machine, such as Babbage's Difference Engine to compute life tables; see page 854 of the present report, in which Farr refers to his 1843 letter on the subject to the registrar-general. Farr had seen and tested the machine's predecessor, the Scheutz Engine No. 2, when it was on display in London. It was at Farr's recommandation that the British government authorized in 1857 the sum of Pound 1200 for the Scheutz Engine no. 3 to be constructed by the firm Bryan Donkin, a manufacturer of machines for the color printing of bank notes and stamps....Farr's printing report, received by the Royal Society on March 17 of that year, was written while Scheutz Engine no. 3 was still "in the course of construction by Messr. Donkin" (p. 854). The reports table B1, "Life-Table of Healthy English Districts", made from stereotype plates produced by the calculator, represents the very first application of a difference engine to medical studies."(Hook and Norman, Origins of Cyperspace, No. 77.). - Garrison & Morton: 1700.1.

Order-nr.: 43002