Registration of the causes of death : circulars to medical practioners, and to registrars, a statistical nosology, for the use of those who return the causes of death under 6 and 7 Will. IV., c. 86, circular to coroners, and a classification of the causes of violent deaths / General Register Office.

Date:
1845
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Registration of the causes of death : circulars to medical practioners, and to registrars, a statistical nosology, for the use of those who return the causes of death under 6 and 7 Will. IV., c. 86, circular to coroners, and a classification of the causes of violent deaths / General Register Office. 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.

    11/84
    VI.—MEDICAL INFORMANTS. The following is the explanatory statement referred to in the Circular of July 10th, 1845. “ The recent Act for registering Births, Deaths and Marriages in England, presents an opportunity for obtaining that great desideratum n medical statistics, a more exact statement of the causes of death, in he case of every registered death throughout the whole of England and Wales, after the month of June next ensuing. u rppg Register-Books in which all deaths are to be registered after he last day of June, 1837, contain columns wherein may be inserted h q cause of death, in juxtaposition with those other important illustrative circumstances, the sex, the age, and the profession or calling of the leceased person. Each Register* Book will also be assigned to a pai- i icular District of small extent, and will thus show in what part of the kingdom each death has occurred. If, therefore, the cause of death be mrrectly inserted, there will exist thenceforward public documents, from whence may be derived a more accurate knowledge, not only of the com- parative prevalence of various mortal diseases, as regards the whole of England and Wales, but also of the localities in which they respectively prevail, and the sex, age, and condition of life which each principally affects. “ For the attainment of this object, it is necessary to ensure, as far as it is possible, the correct insertion of the ‘ cause of death: It is obvious that on this subject the requisite information can seldom be given to the Registrar, except by the medical attendant of the deceased person ; and that even if the Registrar be a medical practitioner (which in many instances will be the case), yet will he often be unable to ascertain the truth in this respect, if he is to depend solely on the reports of persons ignorant of medicine and of the names and nature of diseases ; and it cannot be expected that from his own knowledge he will be able so far to correct their errors as to ensure a statement worthy of credit. ,The requisite information must therefore be supplied either directly or indirectly by the medical attendant of the deceased person; that is to say, if such medical attendant is not applied to by the Registrar, he must afford the requisite information to those other persons to whom the Registrar must apply. , “ The persons who, according to the Act for Registering Births, 1 Deaths, and Marriages in England, must give information to the Regis- : trar on being requested so to do, are ‘ some person present at the death, or in attendance during the last illnessor ‘ in case of the death, illness, inability, or default of all such persons, the occupier ot the house or tenement; or, if the occupier be the person who shall have died, some inmate of the house or tenement in which such death shall have hap- pened.’ It is also provided that, ‘Tor the purposes of this Act, the ‘master or keeper of every gaol, prison, or house of correctipn, or work- house, hospital, or lunatic asylum, or public or charitable institution, shall be deemed the occupier thereof.’