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THE GENERAL REGISTER OFFICE, 1837-1937
1531 the results of which
THE LANCET LONDON: SATURDAY, JUNE 26, 1937
THE GENERAL REGISTER OFFICE, 1837-1937 IN the publicity attending the centenary of the General Register Office much has been heard of marriage registers, something of census taking and a little, a very little, of medical statistics. In this office our thoughts turn naturally to the romance of medical statistics rather than to that of the Fleet and Mint registers of marriages (now, we understand, in the custody of the General Register Office) because, had it not been for the founder of THE LANCET, we might not now be celebrating On June 29th, a medical-statistical centenary. a article on the first we 1839, published leading Its writer said: of the Registrar-General. report " starved has rabbits, poisoned dogs, Magendie cut their nerves, drained their veins, and investigated the effects of reagentsupon their blood :thousands of frogs and cats, sparrows, chickens and mice, geese, pigeons and turtles have been sacrificed, not cruelly-not to gratify carnivorous
propensities-not to seeksuperstitiousindications,but in the hope of surprising the mysteries and laws of vitality. The Lecturer of the College of France, in the plenitude of his zeal would, however, never think of rendering men the subjects of his experimental crucifixions." " But," continues the writer, " in the present state of society are not the experiments from which the physiologist would shrink-and which he would not dare to name, or which he would not think of proposing, performed upon a large scale ?.... What variety of occupation and exercise can the experimentalist require that is not practised upon the hills and the plains, in the factories and the potteries, under the earth and on the seas ? And must it be that because we can only observe these phenomena, and cannot experiment, that they are to be neglected ? " One sees to what this is tending and how it must have rejoiced the heart of young Mr. FARR. Indeed as there are two Latin quotations, a reference to augurs and to men of such widely different celebrity as MAGENDIE and UDE, one might even conjecture that-but we need not do so. Anyhow the founder of THE LANCET believed in Farr and said in the very next issue : "The pages of this Journal have frequently been enriched by statistical contributions of Mr. Farr, and we feel much pleasure in recording our approbation of the article now before us, which cannot fail to lay a lasting foundation of honour for its learned author." Indeed we may fairly look upon Farr’s career with some parental pride. In our columns he commenced author, we rejoiced in his later achievements, over the way in which he really did drive home to the sanitarian the lessons to be learned from experiments in the factories and the potteries, ....
recorded in the registers. Perhaps we might even claim that Farr’s association with journalism served him well. Nicely educated young men of this age who eschew superlatives, true-blue civil servants whose principles forbid them to come nearer the crudity of "I think " than is expressed by "it may, perhaps, be thought," find Farr a trifle flamboyant. But nobody could find him dull. The belief that medical statistics are dull reading will not, we hope, survive Dr. BRADFORD HiLL’s book. Anybody needing further reassurance should turn over Annual Reports of the Registrar-General in Farr’s time. One of the last of his " Letters to the Registrar-General on the Causes of Death," that for 1876, contains an essay on that topical subject maternal mortality. From the statistical and historical point of view it is profitable reading. In collecting materials for his statistical study Farr had perused the details of individual cases. There was one, of a death from flooding due, it would seem, to the practitioner’s negligence. Farr obtained, and printed, a moving letter from the dead woman’s husband. A prudent official would have left it without comment or, at most, have added " it is, perhaps, to be regretted that." But the old journalist’s blood was stirred and he wrote : " In recollecting her pale lips and blanched cheeks as she lay, the tears rushed to her father’s eyes. were
In questa forma Passa la bella donna e par che dorma.
Such fearful cases should be judged by the Medical Council." Farr’s genius made medical statistics a science. His training helped him to make others share in human sorrows, the events of which were merged into averages. Carefully avoiding a Latin quotation which he would surely have made, we will say that Farr was never in any danger of forgetting in statistical analysis the real object of collecting statistics. The work he began has grown so great that, whether we like it or not, idiosyncracies of expression, however charming, must be eliminated from official documents. Now it is for the readers, not for the compilers, of official medical statistics to realise what is behind these serried ranks of numbers.
BLOOD TRANSFUSION IT is now about twenty years since transfusion established on a sound basis and became an accepted part of medical and surgical routine. No figures are available for the number of transfusions yearly performed in this country but it must run into many thousands and is rapidly increasing. In 1921-the year of its inceptionthe London Blood Transfusion Service arranged a donor for 1 transfusion; by 1931 the number had risen to 2078, and this year it will probably prove to be more than three times greater. For the country as a whole the increase is probably very similar. But whereas the needs of London have been admirably met by the comprehensive service directed by Mr. P. L. OLIVER, the provision of donors in other districts has usually had to be was
THE LANCET LONDON: SATURDAY, JUNE 26, 1937
THE GENERAL REGISTER OFFICE, 1837-1937 IN the publicity attending the centenary of the General Register Office much has been heard of marriage registers, something of census taking and a little, a very little, of medical statistics. In this office our thoughts turn naturally to the romance of medical statistics rather than to that of the Fleet and Mint registers of marriages (now, we understand, in the custody of the General Register Office) because, had it not been for the founder of THE LANCET, we might not now be celebrating On June 29th, a medical-statistical centenary. a article on the first we 1839, published leading Its writer said: of the Registrar-General. report " starved has rabbits, poisoned dogs, Magendie cut their nerves, drained their veins, and investigated the effects of reagentsupon their blood :thousands of frogs and cats, sparrows, chickens and mice, geese, pigeons and turtles have been sacrificed, not cruelly-not to gratify carnivorous
propensities-not to seeksuperstitiousindications,but in the hope of surprising the mysteries and laws of vitality. The Lecturer of the College of France, in the plenitude of his zeal would, however, never think of rendering men the subjects of his experimental crucifixions." " But," continues the writer, " in the present state of society are not the experiments from which the physiologist would shrink-and which he would not dare to name, or which he would not think of proposing, performed upon a large scale ?.... What variety of occupation and exercise can the experimentalist require that is not practised upon the hills and the plains, in the factories and the potteries, under the earth and on the seas ? And must it be that because we can only observe these phenomena, and cannot experiment, that they are to be neglected ? " One sees to what this is tending and how it must have rejoiced the heart of young Mr. FARR. Indeed as there are two Latin quotations, a reference to augurs and to men of such widely different celebrity as MAGENDIE and UDE, one might even conjecture that-but we need not do so. Anyhow the founder of THE LANCET believed in Farr and said in the very next issue : "The pages of this Journal have frequently been enriched by statistical contributions of Mr. Farr, and we feel much pleasure in recording our approbation of the article now before us, which cannot fail to lay a lasting foundation of honour for its learned author." Indeed we may fairly look upon Farr’s career with some parental pride. In our columns he commenced author, we rejoiced in his later achievements, over the way in which he really did drive home to the sanitarian the lessons to be learned from experiments in the factories and the potteries, ....
recorded in the registers. Perhaps we might even claim that Farr’s association with journalism served him well. Nicely educated young men of this age who eschew superlatives, true-blue civil servants whose principles forbid them to come nearer the crudity of "I think " than is expressed by "it may, perhaps, be thought," find Farr a trifle flamboyant. But nobody could find him dull. The belief that medical statistics are dull reading will not, we hope, survive Dr. BRADFORD HiLL’s book. Anybody needing further reassurance should turn over Annual Reports of the Registrar-General in Farr’s time. One of the last of his " Letters to the Registrar-General on the Causes of Death," that for 1876, contains an essay on that topical subject maternal mortality. From the statistical and historical point of view it is profitable reading. In collecting materials for his statistical study Farr had perused the details of individual cases. There was one, of a death from flooding due, it would seem, to the practitioner’s negligence. Farr obtained, and printed, a moving letter from the dead woman’s husband. A prudent official would have left it without comment or, at most, have added " it is, perhaps, to be regretted that." But the old journalist’s blood was stirred and he wrote : " In recollecting her pale lips and blanched cheeks as she lay, the tears rushed to her father’s eyes. were
In questa forma Passa la bella donna e par che dorma.
Such fearful cases should be judged by the Medical Council." Farr’s genius made medical statistics a science. His training helped him to make others share in human sorrows, the events of which were merged into averages. Carefully avoiding a Latin quotation which he would surely have made, we will say that Farr was never in any danger of forgetting in statistical analysis the real object of collecting statistics. The work he began has grown so great that, whether we like it or not, idiosyncracies of expression, however charming, must be eliminated from official documents. Now it is for the readers, not for the compilers, of official medical statistics to realise what is behind these serried ranks of numbers.
BLOOD TRANSFUSION IT is now about twenty years since transfusion established on a sound basis and became an accepted part of medical and surgical routine. No figures are available for the number of transfusions yearly performed in this country but it must run into many thousands and is rapidly increasing. In 1921-the year of its inceptionthe London Blood Transfusion Service arranged a donor for 1 transfusion; by 1931 the number had risen to 2078, and this year it will probably prove to be more than three times greater. For the country as a whole the increase is probably very similar. But whereas the needs of London have been admirably met by the comprehensive service directed by Mr. P. L. OLIVER, the provision of donors in other districts has usually had to be was