DEMOGEOT

demogeot, jacques claude (1808-1804), french man of letters, was born in paris on the 5th of july 1808. he was professor of rhetoric at the lycee saint louis, and subsequently assistant professor at the sorbonne. he wrote many detached papers on various literary subjects, and two reports on secondary education in england and scotland in collaboration with h. montucci. his reputation rests on his excellent _histoire de la litterature francaise depuis ses origines jusqu'a nos jours_ (1851), which has passed through many subsequent editions. he was also the author of a _tableau de la litterature francaise au xvii^e siecle_ (1859), and of a work (3 vols., 1880-1883) on the influence of foreign literatures on the development of french literature. he died in paris in 1894. demography (from gr. [greek: demos], people, and [greek: graphein], to write), the science which deals with the statistics of health and disease, of the physical, intellectual, physiological and economical aspects of births, marriages and mortality. the first to employ the word was achille guillard in his _elements de statistique humaine ou demographie comparee_ (1855), but the meaning which he attached to it was merely that of the science which treats of the condition, general movement and progress of population in civilized countries, i.e. little more than what is comprised in the ordinary vital statistics, gleaned from census and registration reports. the word has come to have a much wider meaning and may now be defined as that branch of statistics which deals with the life-conditions of peoples.