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Social History of Medicine 1991 4(3):465-478; doi:10.1093/shm/4.3.465
© 1991 by Society for the Social History of Medicine
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Disease, Febrile Poisons, and Statistics: The Census as a Medical Survey, 1841–1911

EDWARD HIGGS*

*Public Record Office, Kew Richmond, Surrey

SUMMARY Historians have tended to treat the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century censuses of England and Wales as social and economic surveys. In this paper it is argued that they should be seen as part of the General Register Office's overall project of data gathering for the purposes of medical and sanitary research. The populations of defined administrative areas were required for calculating rates search. the populations of defined administraticve areas were required for calculating rates of mortality per thousand. Information on family structure, marital condition, age, sex, and birthplace were used to construct life-tables for insurance purposes, and to study the factors leading to the insanitary overcrowding of cities. Even the classification of occupations was based on a medical model for the purpose of studying the effect of work with particular materials on health. This creates problens for those who wish to use this data for measuring sectoral labour inputs into the economy over time.

Keywords: censuses; General Register Office; medical research; population; mortality; family structure/insurance; life-tables; overcrowding; occupations.


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