Dictionary.net

Tables, instituted for the purpose of exhibiting the number of deaths, &c., in a given time. Well kept bills of mortality are of great use to the physician and political economist. Those of London were proverbial for their inaccuracy and insufficiency; especially as regards the complaints of which the persons have died. They were formerly made out by the parish clerks, and the information was converyed to them by two old women, who were appointed in each parish, and were called Searchers; - their duty being to see that the deceased had died a natural death. This miserable system has, however, been abolished; and the Registrar-General's annual reports of births, deaths, and marriages, exhibit how admirably vital statistics are now collected in Great Britain.