Johann Peter Süssmilch

The work of German statistician/demographer Johann Peter Süssmilch (1707–1767) is not well known to the English- speaking world, primarily because none of his books have been translated into English. Süssmilch was a first-rate thinker, however, and his major contribution to population studies was his extensive work on demography (the study of population)—the first such attempt in any language. The first edition of his book The Divine Order in the Transformation of the Human Race as Demonstrated Through Birth, Death, and the Multiplication of the Same was published in 1741. Süssmilch was very pronatalist and thought that one of the primary duties of the state was to promote marriage and childbearing, following the rules he sets forth in this viewpoint.

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