But ONS mortality data for period show circulatory disease as overall top cause of deaths in England and Wales

Deaths from heart attacks and stroke halved in England and Wales over the first 11 years of this century, while the numbers dying from cancer rose, according to newly published mortality data from the Office for National Statistics.

The 21st century mortality files from the ONS contain a vast amount of data not only about the big killers of modern times but also the more surprising and less likely accidental causes of mortality.

Only three people died from snake bites, all men, between 2001 and 2012. One man died of dengue fever, and four men and two women from anthrax poisoning over that period.

Ischaemic or coronary heart disease was the biggest cause of death, killing 40,557 people in 2012, followed by lung cancer, which caused more than 30,000 deaths, and "unspecified dementia" which was responsible for more than 26,000 and did not include the 8,859 deaths from Alzheimer's disease.

Over the 11 years, heart attack deaths dropped from 46,610 in 2001 to 23,085 last year, while stroke deaths fell from 33,918 to 17,024. Better diets, reduced smoking especially after the ban in public areas, and more prompt and effective treatment has brought deaths down.

Circulatory disease, which includes heart attacks and strokes, has been the biggest cause of death in the 21st century to date, responsible for a total of 2,114,550 deaths so far while cancers and neoplasms accounted for 1,686,133.

But last year deaths attributed to some form of cancer or neoplasms (tumours which can be benign) exceeded those in the circulatory disease category.

The picture is vastly changed over a century. ONS data on early 20th century mortality shows the toll that infectious diseases used to take, before antibiotics were available. Bronchitis was the leading cause of death in 1912, killing more than 39,000 people, and tuberculosis was fourth, causing 21,619 deaths, while pneumonia was sixth. The second most common cause of death was categorised as "senile decay", which indicated physical frailty rather than dementia.

The youngest were the most vulnerable in 1912. There were 82,779 deaths under the age of one, amounting to 17% of the total. Only 3% of people died over the age of 85. That picture has completely changed, with 0.6% of deaths in 2012 before the age of one but a massive 38.6% of deaths (192,739) after the age of 85.