195 
cannot be relied upon for the species of information which 
he seeks to obtain from them. 
Even when it is required only to estimate the gross mor- 
tality of various places, there are important limitations to 
their usefulness, owing to the various nature of the bound- 
aries of the several registration districts, the presence or 
absence of hospitals, and the movements or relative compo- 
sition as to age, &c., of the populations. Carefully collated 
data on these several points are given in the later reports, 
and by dint of much labour some of the more serious 
errors from these causes may be avoided, but when we 
come to the nosology of the tables and try to pick out, as 
Mr. Baxendell has done, the causes of the mortality in 
different years, we are at once foiled of accurate results by 
the imperfections of the. records and the impossibility of 
verifying the causes of death. 
These drawbacks to the utility of the returns have often 
been pointed out, and in the early reports of the Kegistrar- 
General, Dr. Farr himself complains of the imperfect nomen- 
clature of disease. Doubtless some improvement has taken 
place of late years, but such variations in the accuracy of 
diagnosis at once prevent any value from attaching to a 
comparison between earlier and later records. Until a very 
recent period the registration of deaths was not compulsory 
at all ; and in the Report of the Medical Officer to the Privy 
Council for the year 1864, it is noted that out of 500 deaths 
registered in St. David’s district only 15 were recorded by 
properly qualified medical practitioners. To the present 
time it is highly probable that the disease Phthisis or Con- 
sumption is far too often recorded as the cause of death in 
some districts in Wales, since it is made to include many 
forms of disease that cause wasting before they cause death. 
Dr. Haviland’s recent map of the distribution of phthisis, 
thus makes it appear that the Island of Anglesey is one 
of the worst districts in the kingdom for the production of 
