- Caspar Neumann
Caspar (or Kaspar) Neumann (
14 September 1648 –27 January 1715 ) was a German professor and clergyman from Breslau with a special interest in mortality rates.Biography
The later clergyman made first an apprenticeship as a pharmacist. He finished his higher school education at Breslau's Maria-Magdalen grammar school. In 1667 he became a student of theology at the
university of Jena , eventually he was ordinated priest. A journey through Germany and Switzerland followed, Neumann travelled as companion and tutor of the heredetary princes of duke Ernst the Pious. Back home he became a court-chaplain atAltenburg , and married the daughter of J. J. Rabe, physician in ordinary to the prince ofSaxe-Friedenstein . In 1678 he became the deacon of St. Maria-Magdalen in Breslau. In 1680 he published his prayer-book under the title "Kern aller Gebete" in Jena. In 1689 he became vicar of St. Maria Magdalen, Breslau. His observations on the city's mortality rates resulted in the treatise “Reflexionen über Leben und Tod bey denen in Breslau Geborenen und Gestorbenen” which he finally sent to Leibnitz – the covering letter is documented, the text itself is lost. Leibnitz seems to have informed theRoyal Society of Neumann's work. The society's secretaryHenri Justel invited Neumann in 1691 to provide the Society with the data he had collected. Neumann's mail is lost,Edmond Halley 's computations digesting Neumann's data have, however, survived – published in the "Transactions of the Royal Society" of 1693. In 1697 Neumann was appointed inspector of the Protestant schools and churches of Breslau. He eventually became vicar of St. Elisabeth and professor of theology at both the city's grammar schools. Neumann influencedJohann Christian Kundmann (1684-1751), who later published the first German comparative study of mortality rates in the "Sammlung von Natur- Medizin- sowie auch dazu gehörigen Kunst- und Litteraturgeschichten" (1718) ff.External links
* [http://www.pierre-marteau.com/editions/1693-mortality.html Edmond Halley, "An Estimate of the Degrees of the Mortality of Mankind" (1693), based on Neumann's data.]
Literature
* [http://dz-srv1.sub.uni-goettingen.de/sub/digbib/loader?did=D308326 Graetzer, Jonas, "Edmund Halley und Caspar Neumann - Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Bevölkerungs-Statistik", Breslau 1883 (Göttinger Digitalisierungszentrum)]
*Schimmelpfennnig, K. A., "Kaspar Neumann (1648-1715)", in "ADB", 23 (1886).
*Lischke, Ralph-Jürgen, "Caspar Neumann (1648-1715). Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Sterbetafeln", ed. Institut für Angewandte Demographie GmbH (Berlin, 1998).
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