First extensive application of a mechanical computer to medical statistics. The appendix details the use of the Scheutz version of Charles Babbage’s calculating machine in the construction of English Life Table No. 3. However, the machine required constant attention, and the G.R.O. soon reverted to manual calculations employing logarithms until conversion to mechanical calculation methods in 1911. See J.M. Eyler, Victorian social medicine: the ideas and methods of William Farr, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Press, [1979].