Abstract
The main part of this chapter had to be written in the middle of an ongoing study, in which I attempt to analyze vital statistics on conception rates, mortality, and suicides from all over the world. The data sources were in part easily accessible in specific publications, such as those of the World Health Organization, but often they were available only from serials not easy to find. In presenting a general view at the present stage of my investigation, I am confronted with the difficulty that information from several geographical areas is still missing, and that the data collected so far are not satisfactorily homogeneous with regard to the time spans they cover. Hence, more data and more analytical procedures are needed until reliable answers can be given to some of the questions developed so far. However, even the preliminary findings seem to me to be of sufficient interest to risk publication (and the criticism of jumping to conclusions).
We are told by a grave Author, an eminent French Physician, that Fish being a prolifick Dyet, there are more children born in Roman Catholic Countries about Nine Months after Lent, than at any other Season.
—Jonathan Swift, 1729.
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Aschoff, J. (1981). Annual Rhythms in Man. In: Aschoff, J. (eds) Biological Rhythms. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-6552-9_24
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