The geographical distribution of heart disease and dropsy, cancer in females & phthisis in females, in England and Wales.

  • Haviland, Alfred, -1903.
Date:
1875
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The geographical distribution of heart disease and dropsy, cancer in females & phthisis in females, in England and Wales. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    PREFACE. 1 It is a remarkable fact that Dr. Farr, in his very first letter to the Registrar- General in 1839, when the Act for Registering Births, Deaths, and Marriages in England came into operation, made the following statement:— ‘ The registration of* the diseases of the several districts will furnish medical men with a series of valuable remedial agents. It will designate the localities where disease is most rife, and where there is the most tendency to particular classes of sickness and infirmity. ‘ In recommending a residence to patients, the physician will find the registered causes of death an indispensable directory ; and the utility of a Sanitary Map of the Country, such as the Returns will furnish, cannot fail to be felt in England, where a part of the population is constantly migrating from place to place in search of health. ‘ Much information has been collected respecting the influence of the British climate; but the facts will bring to light many salubrious spots hitherto unknown, and disclose the dangers which infest others unsuspected. ‘ Invalids resort to some unhealthy places ; families carrying their children, in autumn, where small-pox and measles are often epidemical, or go into parts of the country where bowel-complaints and fevers are extraordinarily fatal.’ After completing the Map on Heart Disease, I was gratified to find that this prophetic opinion had been expressed by Dr. Farr ; and I was stimulated to extend my inquiries not only by what he wrote so many years before there were any data whereon to form such a map, but by his confirmed opinion, when he saw the figures of his office chartographically portrayed. Whilst preparing my basis map, it was discovered that those of the Registra- tion Districts contained in the Census Tables of 1851, and which I at first intended to use, were defective, not having been revised since that year. In order to meet this difficulty, the boundaries of the Registration Districts had to be worked out completely on the Ordnance Maps; and thus an unexpected outlay of time and money was the result. To defray the latter, I applied to the Lords of the Treasury for a grant, which, on the recommendation of the Registrar-General, was accorded to me by the Right Honourable Robert Lowe, M.P.; and I now take this ojDportunity of thanking Major Graham for the hearty and effective support which he afforded