Paralysis Agitans Mortality in England and Wales, 1855-1962

Abstract

The causes of death in England and Wales have been published in tabular form in the annual reports of the Registrar General since 1837 when Dr William Farr first applied statistical methods to the analysis of the English death roll. The classification of causes of death which Farr developed for this purpose (General Register Office, 1845) included the shaking palsy, and deaths ascribed to this entity tabulated according to age and sex may be found in the annual reports for the years 1855 to 1880 inclu sive. Farr's successor, William Ogle, introduced in 1881 an improved classification based on the new nomenclature of disease of the Royal College of Physicians of London (Idem, 1881). In the new nosology specific medical terms largely replaced the common or popular names previously employed; thus superseded the shaking palsy. The Registrar General continued to publish the number of deaths assigned each year to this cause up to the year 1900. One notes with interest that Charcot (1880) and Sanders (1879) made reference to these reports in their clinical writings. As an unfortunate by-product of changes in the recording of mortality statistics coincident with the introduction of the first international statistical classification in 1901, the mortality ascribed to paralysis agitans was no longer tabulated separately. Publication of data for this disease was resumed in 1921 when the third revision of the International List was adopted. There is thus available, except for the 20-year gap 1901-20, a continuous record of mortality due to paralysis agitans in England and Wales from 1855 to the present representing the most extensive available mortality data on this disease.