ANNUAL REPORT

OF

HEALTH PHYSICIAN,

1876.

CITY OF ALLEGHENY, December 31, 1876.

To the Board of Health:

GENTLEMEN-I have the honor to submit the following report upon the vital statistics of the City of Allegheny for the year ending December, 1876.

My attention will be occupied with the consideration of the mortuary statistics, leaving to the Health Officer the duty of reporting the births and marriages.

The subject of mortuary statistics is one of considerable importance, not alone to the Board of Health, who are the guardians of the sanitary affairs of the city, but to medical men, and intelligent citizens of all classes.

To the Board of Health, the mortuary record furnishes the only means available for determining the inroads of disease upon the community, thereby enabling it to apply its energies, and its agencies, wherever most demanded. The causation of mortality, though an essential thing in the registry of deaths, is not the only one or the most important item included iu the death records.

The correllative facts comprised in the death certificate, facts pertaining to the age, nationality, occupation, &c., &c., are of great importance to the statistician, and from them valuable conclusions may be gathered, not only showing the influence of these conditions on the growth and decline of population, but also affording data from which valuable lessons in public health may be learned.

I have endeavored to procure and compile as accurate statistics as possible, for the information of those interested in mortuary affairs. Physicians have generally contributed the information required of them, and to their co-operation I am indebted for the success which has attended my efforts in improving the value of our statistics.

It is important that persons who fill out certificates of births, marriages and deaths, write the names on their respective certificates legibly, and spell them correctly, as carelessly written certificates have often put the relatives and friends of the de ceased to considerable trouble and inconvenience where transcripts from the record have been required.

Possessing a law, for the enforcement of the returns of births, marriages and deaths, I see no reason why we should be behind other large cities in our system of registration, particularly when our city is so largely populated by European emigrants, and where inheritances are often left, both here and abroad, to descendants who can prove their identity and establish their legitimacy. The existing laws offer no hindrance to any person who may choose to practise medicine in this city without a certificate of qualification, nor, indeed, does the law make enough distinction between those who are graduates of incorporated schools, and they who choose to practise without a diploma. Hence the mistakes in diagnosis and orthography which continually occur in the certificates.

In justice to a laboring and meritorious profession, and as a safeguard against crime, laws should be passed and enforced, so that no physician be recognized save regular graduates with diplomas from incorporated institutes of medicine, in good standing, and no other should be permitted to sign certificates of

Crime, quackery and fraud should be prevented by the blundering and ignorance of quacks, who overdose and maladminister powerful drugs as a specialty, sometimes advertising them as cure-alls, and thus impose on the nervous and credulous, by which means they add to the mortality.

It has been my constant aim to assist in improving the death certificates, and I would again especially call the attention of "PHYSICIANS " and "UNDERTAKERS to the great importance of furnishing fuller details in their certificates of death. Without their co-operation this department must necessarily suffer in efficiency, and remain incomplete.

It is the duty of the Physician, under the law, to give the full name of the deceased, together with the color, age, sex, social condition, occupation and date of death. To this should be added a certificate from the undertaker relating to the parentage, birth place, residence, &c., of deceased, plainly written.

I herewith append mortuary statistics for the year ending December, 1876.

The following table shows the number and nomenclature of each disease.