CHAP. xvm. VACCINATION A DELUSION. 245 



able for the first period, and they are far inferior in 

 accuracy to the modern registration, but they are prob- 

 ably of a fairly uniform character throughout, and may 

 therefore be as useful for purposes of comparison as if 

 they were more minutely accurate. It is admitted that 

 they did not include the whole of the deaths, and the 

 death-rates calculated from the estimated population 

 will therefore be too low as compared with those of the 

 Registrar-General, but the course of each death-rate 

 its various risings or fallings will probably be nearly 

 true. 1 The years are given along the bottom of the 

 diagram, and the deaths per million living are indicated 

 at the two ends and in the centre; the last four years of 

 the Bills of Mortality being omitted because they are 

 considered to be especially inaccurate. The upper line 

 gives the total death-rate from all causes, the middle line 

 the death-rate from the chief zymotic diseases measles, 

 scarlet-fever, diphtheria, whooping-cough, and fevers 

 generally, excluding small-pox, and the lower line small- 

 pox only. The same diseases, as nearly as they can be 

 identified in the Bills of Mortality, according to Dr. 



1 It is always stated that only the deaths of those persons belong- 

 ing to the Church of England, or who were buried in the church- 

 yards, are recorded in the "Bills." This seems very improbable, 

 because the ''searchers" must have visited the house and recorded 

 the death before the burial; and as they were of course paid a fee for 

 each death certified by them, they would not inquire very closely as 

 to the religious opinions of the family, or where the deceased was to 

 be buried. A friend of mine who lived in London before the epoch 

 of registration informs me that he remembers the " searchers' " visit 

 on the occasion of the death of his grandmother. They were two 

 women dressed in black; the family were strict dissenters, and the 

 burial was at the Bunhill Fields cemetery for Nonconformists. This 

 case proves that in all probability the "Bills" did include the deaths 

 of many, perhaps most, Nonconformists. 



