Skip Navigation

Social History of Medicine 1996 9(3):409-426; doi:10.1093/shm/9.3.409
© 1996 by Society for the Social History of Medicine
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow Search for citing articles in:
ISI Web of Science (4)
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by HIGGS, E.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

Articles

The Statistical Big Bang of 1911: Ideology, Technological Innovation and theProduction of Medical Statistics

EDWARD HIGGS*

*Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine, 45–47 Banbury Road Oxford OX2 6PE, UK.

SUMMARY This paper examines the relationship between intellectual debate, technologies for analysing information, and the production of statistics in the General Register Office (GRO) in London in the early twentieth century. It argues that controversy between eugenicists and public health officials respecting the cause and effect of class specific variations in fertility led to the introduction of questions in the 1911 census on marital fertility. The increasing complexity of the census necessitated a shift from manual to mechanised forms of data processing within the GRO. The subsequent increase in processing power allowed the GRO to make important changes to the medical and demographic statistics it published in the Annual Reports of the Registrar General. These included substituting administrative sanitary districts for registration districts as units of analysis, consistently transferring deaths in institutions back to place of residence, and abstracting deaths according to the International List of Causes of Death.

Keywords: General Register Office; eugenics; fertility; censuses; districts; mortality; information technology; registration


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Soc Hist MedHome page
R. Woods
Medical and Demographic History: Inseparable?
Soc Hist Med, December 1, 2007; 20(3): 483 - 503.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


Disclaimer:
Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.