Report of N. D. Stebbins, M.D., on registration.

  • Stebbins, N. D.
Date:
[1857?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of N. D. Stebbins, M.D., on registration. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

    6/18
    ous to those who give the subject the attention which its importance demands. In England, the Registrar General is required to make quarterly returns. By this means the community are early made acquainted with any epidemic which may be making its way in the country. The city of London makes weekly returns. Their proximity to tbe continent, and being in the track by which the cholera has generally made its way, there is the more reason for frequent reports than in our own country. While we believe that yearly reports would be all that is necessary for the interests of the State, still we think that our larger cities, and especially those bor- dering on our great thoroughfares, will find it to their in- terest to have reports made quarterly, if not oftener. The statistics which have been made, and published in England and on the continent, show that since the regis- tration of births, deaths, &c, that its effects have been to operate on society by an increase of longevity, and les- sen the mortality of its population. For an example, we give an extract from their reports, which may be found in the reports published by the State of Kentucky, in 1854, as follows: In Sweden, for instance, between 1756 and 1~63, the an- nual mortality was, for males, one in 33.25; for female3, one in 35.75; whereas, in the year 1800, it had diminished to one in 34.75 for males, and one in 37.50 for females. From mortuary tables, preserved with considerable accuracy at Geneva, it appears that at the time of the Reformation, one half of the children born, died within the sixth year; in the seventeenth century, not until the twelfth year; in the eighteenth century, not until the twenty-seventh jear; consequently, in the space of about three centuries, the probability that a child born in Geneva would arrive at maturity, has increased five-fold. In London, in the year 1606, the annual deaths were 1 in 14.5, or 7 per cent, of the population; and in plague