An example of health and mortality trends in a South American port city. Montevideo, (1757-1860)

This research aims to study the behavior of mortality in Montevideo and its countryside, from the colonial period through the first decades of Uruguay as an independent country. First, we analyze extraordinary mortality, trying to identify years of mortality crises and what was said about their nature. Second, ordinary mortality is studied, ie, its level and characteristics in normal times, with emphasis in the composition of causes of death, for those years iwith available data.
Demographic information of Montevideo and its countryside was developed from 10 parish registers.
The outcomes achieved are result of the application of different demographic methodologies, ranging from population projections (inverse projection) and estimated mortality level indicators, to the use of specific methods to identify years of mortality crisis (Dupâquier as well as Del Panta-Livi Bacci methodologies).
Furthermore, an epidemiological analysis is made, standarizing the different lists of causes of death to a classification that would allow its interpretation in the context of the epidemiological transition.
The results found in this study agree, broadly, with what at first suspected. Throughout the entire period we find a high level of mortality, with characteristical pretransitional mortality fluctuations.