Vital Accounts

Vital Accounts: Quantifying Health and Population in Eighteenth-Century England and France was published by Cambridge University Press in 2002 as part of their Cambridge Studies in the History of Medicine series. Andrea A. Rusnock authored this scholarly work to explore the historical intersection of statistics, medical knowledge, and state administration during the Enlightenment, illustrating how the emergence of vital statistics reshaped the understanding of human health as a measurable public concern.

The book examines the shift toward quantitative methods in tracking mortality and population growth, analyzing how early modern governments utilized these data sets to manage and define the well-being of their citizens. Designed as a rigorous academic resource, it is widely cited within historical and sociological circles for its precise analysis of how early statistical practices evolved into modern public health surveillance, contributing significantly to the literature on the history of science.