Report on the State of Disease m Scotland. 155 



altering the average mortality ; and that it is, therefore, scarcely 

 speaking too strongly to affirm, that out of a given number who are 

 taken sick, a certain number are doomed to die. Hence the import- 

 ance of adopting measures for the prevention of acute diseases, of 

 which the New Drainage Bill (one of the results of the English 

 Registration Bill,) is a happy example. In order to detect the causes 

 of diseases, the mortality bills would require to be made up weekly — 

 at least in large towns. By such a regulation, we might expect some 

 light to be ultimately shed on the origin of Typhus fever in Glasgow — • 

 a disease whose ravages are quite appalling, when we compare it with 

 the mortality from the same disease in the metropolis, as appears from 

 the following numbers : — 



DEATHS FROM TYPHUS. 



GLASGOW. LONDOX. 



1838 816 4078 



1839, 539 1819 



1840, 1229 1262 



1841, 1117 1157 



The mortality from this disease, in Glasgow, was, therefore, in 1841, 

 3i per day — equivalent to above i of the whole mortality. 



In earnestly calling attention to the dreadful mortality from tlie 

 two diseases mentioned, the Committee feel strongly the importance 

 of introducing into Scotland a more correct system of registration 

 than that at present in use. 



To draw the attention of those who have the power to take measures 

 for saving human life, to such facts as the preceding, is, in the opinion 

 of the Committee, the duty of a scientific society. 



The Committee, appreciating the many advantages which would 

 result from the introduction of an uniform system of Registration of 

 the Births, Marriages, and Deaths, in the three divisions of the 

 United Kingdom, beg to suggest, as a prelude to a general legislative 

 enactment, that hospital physicians and surgeons, and district surgeons, 

 and all public medical officers, should make their return of Deaths in 

 the form of the printed schedule now in use throughout England and 

 Wales. 



The Committee would also suggest the importance of a more frequent 

 publication of the results of registration. By a weekly, monthly, or 

 quarterly bill of mortality, the registration reports would be suscep- 

 tible of much greater accuracy ; — diseases might be traced with 

 increased facility to their proper causes, the labour of drawing up tlie 

 mortality bills would be rendered less irksome, and a series of docu- 

 ments, of great practical value, would be continually submitted to the 

 attention of men of science, and of the public. 



