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12
Registkation of Deaths.
The Registrar General asks, "Why is life cut short? Why do the
people of England live only a mean life-time of41 years?" These are important
questions, and are interesting to all men, hut especially so to the
members of the medical profession; and it is to them that we must look for
a solution of the questions. The Government has taken an interest in this
matter, for it has forwarded, free of expense, to each medical practitioner in
United Kingdom, a copy of the new nomenclature of diseases, which was
prepared hy a joint committee of some of the most eminent members of the
medical profession, appointed by the Royal College of Physicians of London.
By the universal adoption of this nomenclature, which contains synonymes
in the Latin, French, Italian, and German languages, it is to be hoped that
the vague terms now so commonly used in the registration of the causes of
death will cease, and that more definite words will be substituted, and that
we shall no longer see in the returns the mere symptoms of disease recorded
as being the cause of death. In some cases it may be necessary to record
the most prominent symptoms of the disease as the cause of death, when a
post mortem examination cannot be obtained. It is certainly most desirable
for statistical purposes that the several kinds of fever, which are now better
understood, should be distinguished in the certificates of death—that the
words fever, bilious fever, gastric fever, and such like indefinite terms should
be discontinued, and that the present standard nomenclature should be
adopted. It is also desirable that the cause of death should be plainly
written in each certificate of death, so that the registrars, who for the most
part are not medical men, may be able to transmit a true copy of the certificate
to the Registrar General.
I am, Gentlemen,
Your obedient Servant,
15, Great Alie Street. JOHN LIDDLE.