A historical account of bills of mortality, and the probability of human life, in Glasgow and other large towns / by James Cleland.

  • James Cleland
Date:
1836
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A historical account of bills of mortality, and the probability of human life, in Glasgow and other large towns / by James Cleland. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    Mitldlescx and SuiTcy. As to the registration of Births, children who arc half bap- tized, i. e. children who are baptized without sponsors, are not registered. These niiiy amount to about one in ten. Great numbers of children are never brought to be registered. As to burials, there is an act of parliament which makes it imperative on church wardens to appoint two searchers in each of the parishes within the Bills of ftJortality. The office of searcher is confided to two old women, generally |)aupers, who are legally entitled to ask a fee of 4d. and on their hearing from the parish clerk that there has been a death in any house, they go and demand a sight of the body. Being very needy people, they are open of course to any fee that may be given them to dispense with their office altogether. Instead of 4d. if they get one shilling, or half-a- crowti, they go away without looking at the body. Indeed they are perfectly inadequate to the purpose, and no reliance can be placed on tliem or their reports of diseases by wliich persons die. From the circumstance of there being only 26,974 christenings registered in 1332, and 28,606 burials, while the population is increasing, there must be great inac- curacy in the Bills, and moreover there are no burials registered, which do not take place in churches or churchyards. Besides all this, there have been no returns from the parish of St. George’s and others for seven or eight years. DU. JAMES MOORE, VICAR OF ST. PANCUAS, In answer to the question respecting an account of the diseases of which people die, said, there would be great objections taken to that. Many families lose their friends from diseases they would not like to have publicly proclaimed, such as insanity, and various scrofulous aifections. This is a thing not to be desired. A mother would not like a strange person to go and inspect the body of her deceased child. GEORGE MANN BURROWS, ESQ., M.D. FORMERLY EDITOR OF THE LONDON MEDICAL REPOSITORY, Was in the habit of receiving weekly Bills of Mortality, and registers of diseases from medical practitioners in the different districts of the metropolis. These he iiublished monthly in the form of a table, showing the diseases prevalent in the eleven different districts into which he divided London. About the end of the year 1817, he observed some very considerable error in the weekly Bills of Mortality. In the parish of St. George, Middlesex, the deaths of the year were entered as the deaths of the week. Dr. Burrows recommended that the office of searcher should be abolished, and that the diseases by which persons die, should be attested by the medical practitioners who attended the deceased. Or if no medical practitioner, the death should be attested by some other appointed for that purpose, who upon view of the body, should certify the disease to the best of his knowledge. As editor of the Medical Repository, Dr. Bur- rows had foreign journals from France, Germany, and Italy, constantly before him, and knew that in every state in Europe, excepting Spain and Fortugal, there are very complete registers, and that with the above exception, the system in Britain is by far the most imperfect in Europe. In Germany and Sweden, the registers are very complete. JOHN SOUTHERNDEN BURN, ESQ., AUTHOR OF THE HISTORY OF PAROCHIAL REGISTERS IN ENGLAND, Stated that there was no registry for any person except those who comply with the
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