An estimate of the degrees of mortality of mankind, drawn from curious tables of the births and funerals at the city of Breslaw, with an attempt to ascertain the price of annuities upon lives.

Halley, the astronomer, compiled the “Breslau tables” to show “the proportion of men able to bear arms … to estimate mortality rates, to ascertain the price of annuities upon lives, and was thus the virtual founder of vital statistics” (Garrison). The data on which Halley based his conclusions were supplied to him by Caspar Neumann, a pastor of Breslau. Because Neumann's correspondence with the Royal Society was lost, Halley's paper is the only record of the statistics that Neumann collected.