The great changes which have lately taken place in India—the progress of railways, the extension of commerce, and the impetus which is likely to be given to the emigration of Europeans to those vast fields of enterprise—cannot but add peculiar interest to any inquiries tending to throw light on the causes which affect the health or life of Europeans in that country. The difficulties of arriving at any sound conclusions on these subjects have always been great. In dominions so widely spread, comprising all climates, from the most delightful temperatures of perpetual spring to the fever-haunted jungles and deadly swamp, every cause that affects the health of man may be found at work.

The assurance of a capital sum payable at the death of a husband is of much more recent adoption than the provision of an annuity during the life of his widow. Some of the earliest Assurance Companies were instituted with the main design of providing annuities to widows and sisters—now, however, forming a very small portion of their business—and very many funds and schemes, instituted at a very early period, are now in existence, throughout the various sections, professions and trades, of the community, whose only end is to secure annuities commencing on the death of the person upon whose income the annuitant may be supposed to be dependant.