We still ask ourselves why women are, apparently, keener on going to the doctors than men are, & if that is the explanation for the shorter lifespan of the male.
Things have not moved (much) since John Graunt was writing 350 years ago:
VI It appearing that there were fourteen men to thirteen women, and that they die in the same proportion also, yet I have heard Physicians say that they have 2 women Patients to one man, which Assertion seems very likely, for that women have either the Green-Sickness or other like Distempers, are sick of Breedings, Abortions, Child-bearing, Sore-breasts, Whites, Obstructions, Fits of the Mother & the like.
VII Now, from this it shld follow that more women shld die than men, if the number of Burials answered in proportion to that of sicknesses, so as few more die, then if none were sick; or else that men, being more intemperate than women, die as much by reason of their Vices as women do by the Infirmity of their Sex, and consequently, more males being born then Females more also die.
Link: John Graunt's Homepage
Related post: The price of long life & happiness
