§ Mr. Leachasked the Minister of Health whether there has been any change in the nomenclature of deaths in respect of certificates attributing death to diabetes and one or more other diseases?
§ Mr. E. BrownIn years prior to 1940 the statistical classification of deaths in respect of certificates attributing the cause to diabetes in conjunction with one or more other diseases was decided by means of rules giving the precedence of one disease over another as laid down in the Registrar-General's Manuals of the international list. These rules gave a532W high precedence to diabetes over other diseases. From the year 1940 classification in such cases has been carried out in accordance with the order of statement of the various causes on the certificate by the certifying medical practitioner, with certain exceptions laid down in the manual issued in 1940. Since diabetes is frequently certified as merely a contributory cause of death, in association with another disease considered by the certifier as more important, the effect has been to reduce the number of deaths classified to diabetes in the statistics of cause of death, and the corrective factor to be applied to numbers of deaths in years prior to 1940 is 0.69. In the recent quarterly returns of the Registrar-General the necessary correction has been applied to the diabetes deaths there shown for years 1938 and 1939.