Report on the mortality of Edinburgh, Leith and Newhaven, for the months of January, and February, 1846 / by James Stark.

Date:
1846
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on the mortality of Edinburgh, Leith and Newhaven, for the months of January, and February, 1846 / by James Stark. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    In preparing mortality tables for Edinburgh and Leith the leading fea- tures of the plan now so successfully carried out in practice over England and Wales, under the registration act, have been adopted. This was done the more willingly, because it is only by employing a similar classification of diseases that onr tables can be rendered available for comparison with theirs ; and because this classification of diseases must be adopted whenever the registration act shall be extended to Scotland—the only country of Europe in which tables of the births, deaths, and marriages of its popula- tion are not published. In order to procure as correct returns as possible every medical practi- tioner in Edinburgh and Leith has been furnished with a book of forms of medical certificate of the cause of death. In my circular to these gen- tlemen they are requested to fill up the several particulars therein men- tioned, and leave the certificate with the relations or inmates of the house in which the death has occurred, with directions that it be transmitted to the recorder of the burying ground in which the body is to be interred. The recorders copy the several particulars in the schedule headed “ Return of Interments in the Burying-Ground ” and transmit the same to me weekly or monthly, when the whole deaths are classified according to the diseases and ages. It is necessary to mention that the numbers in the following tables are the absolute amount of deaths which have happened in Edinburgh and Leith for the months of January and February. This is insured by hav- ing the returns made of every interment in every burying ground in and around Edinburgh and Leith. The medical certificates are chiefly of use in procuring correct returns of the names of the diseases, but are not essen- tial to the working of the plan. Arrangements have been made by which abstracts of the mortality tables will be published monthly, or weekly should occasion require, in the Edinburgh newspapers and other periodicals, and along with it the state of the barometer, thermometer, and rain-gauge, extracted from the register kept by Mr Adie, the celebrated optician. As it appears to be an error in the English tables to class prema- ture births under the head of debility, where those who have been born alive are classed with those who have never breathed, they have been placed by themselves in the Edinburgh tables. The whole deaths are thus classed under thirteen heads. 1. Epidemic, endemic, or contagious diseases; 2. Diseases of uncertain seat; 3. Diseases of brain and nervous system; 4. Diseases of respiratory organs ; 5. Diseases of heart and blood-vessels; 6. Diseases of stomach, liver, and organs of digestion ; 7. Diseases of kidneys; 8. Childbirth and diseases of uterus, &c.; 9. Rheumatism and diseases ot bones and joints; 10. Diseases of skin and cellular tissue; 11. Old age; 12. Violence, privation, cold, and intemperance ; 13. Still-born. The following is an abstract of the mortality tables of Edinburgh and Leith for the months of January and February of the current year: EDINBURGH. January 1846. ^ales» * if® 1 Total, 409. Females, . 211 J The mortality this month exhibits an increase of 55 above that of January 1845. Ages. Still-born, 1 year and under. Jan. Feb. No. No. 27 27 82 67 February 1846. Hides, . 180 ) Totaj 35*. b emales, . 17 4 ) I’he mortality this month shows an increase of 2 above that of Febru- ary 1845. Ages. 2 years, 5, Jan. Feb. No. No. 41 31 26 29