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Because the seat is much more easy to determine than the nature" (Commission Internationale Nomenclature Internationale des Maladies 1910, 11). Statisticians stressed that the role of the list makers was not to produce "philosophy" but to make a "truthful" and "comparable'' list. The Spanish authorities wanted the list of general diseases to be set out according to how public authorities could react, breaking them down as follows: |
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Common to people and animals |
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Professional intoxications |
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(Commission Internationale Nomenclature Internationale des Maladies 1910, 17). |
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Another set of statisticians wanted to give precedence to social-biological factors (CH/experts stat/80, 4). "Violent death" should move up the list, since this would: "settle various doubts . . . as to whether consequences due to visible external causes are to be classified here, or, for example, under infectious diseases (a case in point is infectious diseases of wounds)." Or again, it was argued that there should be a subdivision for diseases for which statistics were required under international conventions, for example, lead poisoning (CH/experts stat/80, 4). |
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As we have gone through the different categories, we have been getting closer and closer to seeing the list as entirely heterogeneous. The ICD is not so much a list of causes of death as a series of dynamic compromises among a wide range of players across a number of different venuesperhaps like an organization chart or a labor contract. Or, as one observer noted: "In short, the nomenclature of diseases and of causes of death established for the needs of statistical organization constitutes a sort of contract between the two organizations who are charged with statistical worksthat is to say the service who makes the observations and that which produces statistics with the help of these data" (CH/expert stat/43 1927, 3). |
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The above discussions indicate that many people from diverse social worlds had a stake in how the ICD was compiled and used. Three other significant groups were also involved. |
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