View report page

3
have been effected by acceding to this request might possibly
be more than off-set by the receipt of a report in the more usual
form. On considering the question as to whether the non-inclusion
of the Registrar General's official statistics would be outweighed
by the advantages of the report being presented at an earlier
date and therefore closer in time to the period to which it related,
it was decided to delay the presentation of the report until such
date as would permit of the inclusion of these statistics.
With the object of attaining uniformity and so ensuring
that statistics of different countries shall be comparable, conferences
internationally represented are held periodically. Consequent on
recommendations made at these meetings some alteration in the
procedure of completing death certificates or of classifying the
various causes of death enumerated in the certificates are sometimes
made. Such a change was made in this country, being
effective as from the beginning of 1940. There are certain rules
intended to be followed by medical practitioners in completing
death certificates. It is unfortunate that more attention is not
paid to that in which it is suggested that the practitioner should
for each case first consider whether the essential facts of the case
cannot be epitomized by a statement of a single cause. The
prescribed form of certificate is now divided into two sections.
In the first should be included the immediate cause of death and
any morbid conditions which led up to it, if such there were, the
latter being stated in order backwards from the immediate to the
remoter causes. In the second should be indicated conditions
which are not in the chain of pathological events which have led
to the immediate cause of death but which have none the less
contributed seriously to the fatal issue. Where more than one
cause of death appears on the certificate the Registrar General
allocates the death into the appropriate category according to
his rules, causes entered in the first section of the certificate being,
as a rule, preferred to causes entered in the second section. Under
the new arrangement, allocation will be based more than formerly
on the order of statement of the diseases by the certifying
practitioner rather than by the application of any rules, for which
reason correct certification is now more than ever necessary.
Many certificates appear to be completed with little regard to the
suggestions made by the Registrar General respecting the completion
of certificates of death. Had the district registrars in
the change following the coming into force of the provisions of
the Local Government Act, 1929, been attached to the local
sanitary authorities, or at least to the larger of them, improvement
in this respect in time might have been attained. The Registrar
General classifies the deaths into one of some 200 categories for
the purpose of compiling a detailed international list of causes of
death. In addition he compiles an abridged list of some 36
headings. Alterations in the headings of these categories have