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Social History of Medicine 1994 7(3):472-492; doi:10.1093/shm/7.3.472
© 1994 by Society for the Social History of Medicine
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Archives and Sources

‘Death is the Cure of All Diseases’: Using the General Register Office Cause of Death Statistics for 1837–1920

ANNE HARDY*

*Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine 183 Euston Road, London NW1 2BN.

SUMMARY: The series of cause of death statistics for England and Wales published by the General Register Office between 1837 and 1920 are a fundamental source for historians studying death and disease in this period. Attention was first drawn to the historical importance of this source, and to its principal shortcomings, by Bill Luckin in 1980. Research by a number of scholars in recent years on mortality and morbidity in the nineteenth century has uncovered further problems, which are outlined in this essay under two heads general problems, and problems relating to specific cause of death categories.

Keywords: Causes of death; certification; classfication; diagnosis; allocation; cancer; Bright's disease; diabetes; diarrhoea; rheumatism; syphilis; tuberculosis


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