228 FOTHERGILL AS PHILANTHROPIST CHAP. 



existence since the reign of Queen Elizabeth, having been set 

 up in 1592. But the entries were very imperfect, being 

 derived from the reports of searchers, mostly poor ignorant 

 women, who viewed the bodies of the dead. As a consequence 

 the causes of death were assigned with little pretence to 

 accuracy. Consumptions, convulsions and fevers were the 

 three chief articles ; and any emaciated body was placed in 

 the first category, when some other wasting disorder, or old 

 age alone, might have been the cause. A large proportion of 

 deaths was accordingly debited to consumption in the year 

 1768, 4379 out of 23,639 deaths from all causes, and London 

 acquired undeservedly a bad name as an unhealthy city. It 

 was without avail that Graunt had already discussed the 

 value and the defects of the Bills of Mortality as early as 1665. 

 Recently Dr. Thomas Short had published a work, dealing at 

 large with the records of births and burials, and the valuable 

 inferences to be drawn from them, but deploring the inexact- 

 ness of the Bills of Mortality and the Parish Registers. 



The former system was under the control of the Company 

 of Parish Clerks in London, and to them Fothergill applied, 

 placing a memorial before them, which set forth that the 

 weekly Bills were defective to his own knowledge, that the 

 list of diseases was a very injudicious one, and therefore that 

 their labours were to little useful purpose. He proposed a 

 plan by which not only the parishes within the Bills of Mor- 

 tality, but all the parishes in England, should be obliged to 

 keep exact registers of births, burials and marriages ; that 

 each county should form an annual register from its several 

 parishes ; and that the returns from the counties should be 

 incorporated at the capital in one general Bill or summary. 

 In order to improve the list of causes of death Fothergill called 

 some physicians of eminence together ; the list was attentively 

 considered, all synonymous and obsolete terms were rejected, 

 and such explanations provided of the rest as would enable 

 those who had to make report to do so with some precision. 



The following benefits were to be expected from this change. 

 The increase or decrease of particular diseases would be 

 ascertained, in different periods, and at various places through- 

 out the kingdom. The increase or decrease of the population 

 would be known, and in time its numbers. Light would be 

 thrown on the progress of the nation in vice or virtue, by the 

 proportion of deaths reported as due to diseases proceeding 

 from intemperance. Lastly, it would afford a firm basis of 

 political arithmetic. 



The Company thought the proposal of much consequence 



