Matters of life and death.

Date:
1948
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Matters of life and death. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    In some diseases such as diabetes modern discoveries have greatly extended the span of life, though final cure may not have been achieved ; and death rates have been seen to fall in a dramatic way among young people while increasing at advanced ages. Ina few other diseases such as infantile paralysis and leukemia, mortalityis rising despite all remed- ies. The knowledge that this is so stimulates more intensive research until, sooner or later, an effective remedy or preventive measures are found. The study of the behaviour of death rates and notification rates in recent years, while giving no excuse for complacency, furnishes great encouragement to continue the attack upon fatal diseases by every possible means. The old idea that, apart from ageing and accidents, there is a hard core of disease never likely to yield to such efforts is no ‘longer tenable. It may indeed be true to say that the time is not too far off when the death of a school child from any cause other than violence will be a rarity and a matter for reproach. i THE STUDY OF SICKNESS Mortality however is only one field in the study of improving vitality, and, with the great advances secured in the general expectation of life in recent years, increasing attention has been paid to the incidence of illnesses which do not prove fatal. Until 1944 no attempt had been made to obtain any measure of this in the population as a whole, except with regard to certain notifiable diseases, which comprise only a small fraction of all illnesses among adults. The rise and fall of the prevalence of illness, and its variation according to age, sex, occupation, size of family, kind of housing and degree of incidence as between town and country, could only be judged from the statistics of deaths. The total amount of incapacity caused by illness was unknown. National Health Insurance records, apart from covering only a section of the population, dealt only, and not very fully, with such illnesses as caused in- capacity for four days or longer. A complete survey based on all medical records was ruled out if only on the ground of cost in time and labour. To meet the need for systematic information as to the prevalence of illness, a plan for a field survey of illness and injury of all kinds was worked out for the Ministry of Health by the General Register Office and the Social Survey. This field survey is based on interviews with a selection of the population so contrived as to be representative of the country as a whole. The selection is made with the help of the local National Registration records of the adult civilian population, in such