A Review of the Cancer Statistics in England and Wales and in Scotland between 1891 and 1927

Abstract

That the number of deaths ascribed to cancer has steadily increased within recent years no one will deny, but as to the causes which have produced the increase there is not the same unanimity of opinion. Thirty years ago cancer did not rank very high in the list of fatal diseases. In 1899 the total number of deaths from cancer amongst persons in England and Wales was 26,325 as against 60,659 allocated to tubercular disease. Nowadays, “the old order changeth yielding place to new.” According to the most recent statistics issued by the Registrar-General, in 1929, the number of deaths assigned to cancer was 56,896 and to all forms of tuberculosis 37,990. In view of this large increase in the number of deaths allocated to cancer it seemed of interest to review the cancer statistics of the last thirty years in this country and in Scotland. No investigation of this nature would be complete without first drawing attention to the very important work already done by Dr Stevenson in the Annual Reports of the Registrar-General, particularly the report for 1917 in which he examined the incidence of cancer in particular sites. The statistics of cancer in Scotland have not, until recently, received quite the same amount of attention as those of England. In a paper read to the Medical Association in Edinburgh and afterwards published in the Journal of that society, Dr Dunlop, the Registrar-General, gave a detailed account of the mortality, according to sites, between the years 1911 and 1928. He compared the actual numbers of deaths in 1920–2 and in 1928 with the numbers that might be expected to occur on the basis of the cancer mortality in age groups which prevailed in 1910–12. His method of analysis conforms partly to that of indirect standardisation.