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23
DEATH REGISTRATION AND NOMENCLATURE OF
DISEASE.
In September last Dr. J. F. W. Tatham, Superintendent of Statistics of the
General Register Office, Somerset House, was good enough to forward me a copy
of the circular now appended to each book of forms of medical certificate of
cause of death issued by the Registrar-General. It has been drafted with a
view to secure uniformity in classifying causes of death, and if generally
adopted will be of much assistance to Medical Officers of Health in tabulating
the annual returns required by the Local Government Board.
The following is a copy of the circular referred to :—
suggestions to medical practitioners
respecting
certificates of causes of death.
It is highly desirable that Medical Practitioners should use, in their
Certificates of Death, only those terms which are recognised by the Royal
College of Physicians of London.
The list of diseases now used in the Registrar-General's Reports [a
copy of which is printed in Appendix E, page 221] is condensed from the
Nomenclature of the Royal College of Physicians, with the addition of
certain unofficial terms which are still in common use, but which are
objectionable, either as being the names of symptoms merely, or as being
otherwise indefinite. In the copy of the list here given, these
objectionable terms are printed in italics: and it is hoped that Medical
Practitioners will use them only when accurate information is wanting.
1. The cause of death should be stated precisely and briefly; English
names for diseases being used in preference to their equivalents in other
Languages. Yague terms such as decline, consumption, tabes, cachexia, &c.,
should be avoided ; and haemorrhage should not be assigned as the cause of
Death without indication of its origin and probable cause. Dropsy should
never be returned as the cause of Death without particulars as to its probable
origin, e.g., in Disease of the Heart, Liver, Kidneys, &c.
2. Small-pox.— In certifying deaths from Small-pox, the patient's
condition with respect to vaccination should be carefully stated—say, in one or
other of the following forms:— (1.) No evidence of vaccination. (2.) Vaccinated
in infancy only—number of scars. (3.) Vaccinated only after
infection by Small-pox. (4.) Stated to have been vaccinated but no scars.
[If the patient has been re-vaccinated, the date should be given when
possible.]