Johann Peter Süssmilch

Johann Peter Süßmilch or Süssmilch (September 3, 1707 in Zehlendorf – March 22, 1767 in Berlin) was a German Protestant pastor, statistician and demographer. He is most well-known for his work The Divine order in the changes in the human sex from birth, death and reproduction of the same, which was an influential work in demography and the history of population statistics.

Education and career He was raised in Brandenburg by his grandparents. In 1742 he took a post as Provost in the St. Petri parish in Berlin-Cölln. He became a member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences in 1745. He conversed with Gotthold Ephraim Lessing and Immanuel Kant.

Süßmilch's most important publication on The Divine order in the circumstances of the human sex, birth, death and reproduction, which he wrote in 1741, is regarded as a seminal and pioneering work in demography and the history of population statistics. Süssmilch discovered that, in the long term, there is a constant sex ratio of 1,000 female births to 1,050 male births. He saw this as a proof of the Divine working in this World. Due to this work, he can be regarded as one of the founding fathers of demography in Germany. However, he refers in his work to Caspar Neumann's work, who calculated a monthly statistics of deaths by age and death cause already between 1687 and 1691 in Breslau (present-day Wrocław). Süssmilch also worked on life tables.

Works

The Royal Residence of Berlin's Growth and Rapid Construction, 1752 The Divine order in the changes in the human sex from birth, death and reproduction of the same, 2 parts, 1761-1762 (Digitalisat demography/demography/suessmilch_1761 Part 1, )