Look at this. There were 18M unnatural deaths in the 18th century and this is a low figure relative to total population, compared to the 19th and the 20th centuries. However, it does not mean the 18th century was more peaceful since natural death occurred so much earlier in those days.
There are people dedicating their lives to gathering this kind of statistical data and interpreting it. I am fascinated; this is one of the things I would like.
Axé.
You have to be careful about official statistical collections as I found out. Remember last year when I had a diagram comparing various groups of isolates including medieval anchorites and Japanese hikokomori? The official records estimate that there’re about three and half million hikokomori, all male, according to their definition:
“A state that has become a problem by the late twenties, that involves cooping oneself up in one’s own home and not participating in society for six months or longer, but that does not seem to have another psychological problem as its principal source. More recently, researchers have suggested six specific criteria required to “diagnose” hikikomori: 1) spending most of the day and nearly every day confined to home, 2) marked and persistent avoidance of social situations, 3) symptoms interfering significantly with the person’s normal routine, occupational (or academic) functioning, or social activities or relationships, 4) perceiving the withdrawal as ego-syntonic, 5) duration at least six months, and 6) no other mental disorder that accounts for the social withdrawal and avoidance.”
Well I thought that this was great since the gender distribution matched with my overall schema but unfortunately under further examination fell apart. If you check the provincial stats then the female component suddenly becomes ten percent and if you check the intake records for the institutions that deal with these people, the female component shoots up to fifty percent. So what gives? It seems that it is considered normal for daughters to stay with their parents before marriage while sons are expected to leave home so a cultural blind spot caused about three and half million Japanese female isolates to vanish from the official records so there went my schema.
Yes, I understand. Still I am impressed by the idea of counting quantities this large and this dramatic, and with the amount of history you would have to know and learn, even to do this with errors.