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Report.
Gentlemen,
I have the honour to present my Eighth Annual Report upon
the Vital Statistics of the Parish of Saint Matthew, Bethnal Green.
The Tables of Mortality in the Appendix will be found somewhat
modified. The whole six have been carefully revised by the Council
of the Society of Medical Officers of Health, and the present forms
decided upon after much discussion. They are intended to take the
place of those issued in 1874, which, with a few minor modifications, I
have been in the habit of using in my previous reports.
The Society of Medical Officers of Health is of opinion that certain
changes are rendered necessary as the result of a new nomenclature of
diseases prepared by the Royal College of Physicians, and a new
method of classification adopted by the Registrar General of England
and Wales. This altered classification of registered causes of death
was adopted by the Registrar General, in his weekly returns, at the
commencement of the year.
The principal alterations will be found in Tables I., III. and IV.
Table I. now shews, in addition to the information previously given,
the deaths at certain groups of ages, and also the deaths in public
institutions.
Table III., which is the basis of the whole statistical report, is now
almost identical with the table of registered causes of death in the
weekly returns issued by the Registrar General.
Table IV.—In my previous reports this table has always been
drawn so as to shew the mortality from certain groups of diseases
amongst young children under five years of age, calculated upon an
estimated population of persons living at that age. In this respect it
differed from the 1874 official table, which shewed infantile mortality