Kind and Date of result.

Dura

tion.

1850.

Dates and important Facts in each case.

First saw the patient March 3, being the 4th day of disease-pulse 120-respiration 17-eruption quite fair, but skin dry-throat affected—slight cough. March 5: Symptoms mitigated-considerable diaphoresis. March 7, eve.: Relapse from exposure to-day! throat and lungs much affected conjunctiva highly injected cough bad-sputa, bloody-crepitatus-pulse 150, respiration 19. March 10: Severe symptoms increasing. March 12: Delirium-prognosis very unfavorable. March 13: Symptoms more aggravated-moribund.

Was called Oct. 15-patient had had slight premonitory symptoms "a week or ten days"-tongue dark, coated and dry-much general uneasiness and lassitude-pulse full-respiration easy and quite normal-exhibited hydragogue cathartic. Oct. 20: Less restless-tender on abdomen-tongue clean, red, and more moist-sordes. Oct. 28: Abdomen tympanitic-slight petichiæ on epigastrium-dozy and dreamy-respiration more hurried -costiveness and dysury. N. B. Urged vigilance and faithfulness in the nurse. Oct. 25: Severer symptoms abating. Oct. 26: Convalescent. Oct. 29: Able to go out, but advised rest from business a week.

11

days. Accident Nov. 5th, when first seen. The brain protruded on the third day-symptoms were very favorable up to the 10th day, when lock-jaw supervened. He died on the 11th day. The brain, after death, was a diffused bloody mass, down to the corpus striatum.

8

Died Nov. 16.

days.

3

days.

52

XXI. EXTRACTS FROM COMMUNICATIONS OF J. D. B. DE Bow, Esq., AND EDWARD H. BARTON, M. D., OF NEW ORLEANS.

We accord to Louisiana the honor of being the first state to establish a Bureau of Statistics; and we desire that her excellent example may be imitated by all the other states in the Union. We have received from J. D. B. De Bow, Esq., the Superintendent of the Bureau, a communication dated in January last, Introductory to the First Report," and also a letter addressed to him by Dr. Edward H. Barton, of New Orleans, favorably known for his sanitary labors, from which we make the following interesting extracts :

66

Professor DeBow says,-In investigating the numerous topics connected with population our progress is almost entirely impeded by the total neglect of nearly every species of record existing among us. Careless, as has been our course in regard to the statistics of wealth, we have been infinitely more careless in those that pertain to life and mortality. In vain has the importance of a registration system of births, marriages and deaths, been pressed by Statisticians in every

We acknowledge the receipt of valuable communications from the Boards of Health, or other city authorities, of New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, Charleston, S.C., Savannah, New Orleans, and St. Louis. We extract the following regulations of the Board of Health of Washington. In that city and in New Orleans annual reports are required to be made, by the Board of Health, of such matters as come under their consideration.

That, from and after the promulgation of these regulations, all clergymen be requested to furnish, on the first day of every month, to the Board of Health, returns of all persons married by them during the previous month, and that these returns be made by a certificate after the following form:

WASHINGTON,

18-.

I hereby certify, that the following persons were married by me during the month of

That, from and after the promulgation of these regulations, all physicians, surgeons, and others, who may be engaged in the practice of midwifery, be requested to make to the Board of Health, on the first day of every month, returns of the number of births which have occurred in their practice during the preceding month, and that their returns be made by certificate of the following form:18-. I hereby certify, that the following births have occurred in my practice during the month of

:

Nativity of Length of res

WASHINGTON,

parents. FeMale. male.

idence.

No.

Sex.

of chil- Color. Slaves Remarks. dren.

To the Board of Health.

Accoucheur.

That, from and after the promulgation of the regulations, no Sexton shall receive, or permit to be received, within the grave-yard under his care, a body for interment, without first

part of the Union, by committees of medical associations, by the late National and State Medical Convention, &c. The public mind will not be brought to an appreciation of its value and influence. Massachusetts still remains the only State in the Union which has successfully set up such a system, in imitation of Great Britain and others of the more advanced European powers. Several of our states have evinced a disposition to be active, and New York, it is believed, has even passed a registration law. In Louisiana, at different periods, we have had enactment upon enactment. That of 1811 makes the parish judges, recorders, with a special recorder in New Orleans. The act of 1819 fixes a penalty for not recording in New Orleans. There have been several other legislative provisions, but what have been the practical results of the whole?

It is scarcely necessary to remark that our registration system has been entirely inoperative for any of the purposes advocated by vital economists. Louisiana is peculiarly interested in health and mortuary statistics, as it is believed that no state in the Union has suffered more from erroneous impressions, and misrepresentations that have gone abroad, which we ourselves have not the means to correct. Were the facts even against us, a faithful exhibit of them would tend in the result to improve our sanitary condition. The experience of all countries preserving such records, shows a marked amelioration of society, diminution of disease and extension of the average period of life. The physical condition of man has improved in equal pace, with a knowledge of the causes affecting him, and their degree of intenseness in different localities. There can be no question either, that "the white, black and other races, present peculiar, moral and physical characters, which should not be overlooked by the statesman, whose legitimate aim can only be the prosperity and happiness of all nations." We are strikingly deficient in knowledge of the black and colored population, although living among us for nearly three hundred years. Investigations, notwithstanding their importance, have never been made in this field until within a very few years. Is it true that the negro is long lived at the south and the reverse at the north, whilst the mulatto is always short lived, and never prolific? Is not the real merit of the slave question involved in the physical characteristics of the races, and in discussing it, are not the facts of births, average

having obtained a certificate, which must be in the following form, and signed by the attending physician, clergyman, member of the family, or some respectable person:

Which certificate must be countersigned, and returned by the sexton, with the name of the burial-ground in which the body is interred, and the date of interment, on the first day of the succeeding month. A failure to conform to this regulation will subject the offender to the penalty provided by the law of the Corporation, which the Board of Health are determined to enforce.

lives, diseases, longevity, deaths, increase, vital force, &c., respectively at the north and the south in freedom or in slavery, equally if not more important and decisive than the admonitions of St. Paul or the laws of Moses? We want facts, full, minute and reliable, upon every feature of this subject?

Dr. Barton says:-There can be no known advancement without we are first made acquainted with our actual condition. The discovery of an evil must always precede its removal, and however we may close our eyes, it still exists, drawing compound interest from our neglect. All this has been so eminently proved in relation to this city, that I only need to hint a few of the facts to your intelligence and the whole truth will start from the canvas in the most glaring colors. The United States census takers for 1840 gave us a population of about 27,000 more than we actually had; but as the mortality was not added to in a similar ratio, it made us, by the Bobadil method of computation, the healthiest city in the Union. And some of our writers have since calculated our mortality as one in fifty-eight, a ratio of salubrity far exceeding any city in America, and probably in the world! while our actual mortality is more than double that. You see then that a mis-statement is as bad, nay, worse, than none, for here is an official statement presumed to be entitled to confidence, from which, deductions have been drawn of our actual situation. Had the facts been known and constantly so for thirty or forty years back, of the real mortality of this city,-and you know how much I have labored to procure them for the last fifteen years,-it would be a poor compliment to this intelligent people to suppose that the causes of that mortality would not long since have been investigated, pointed out and remedied, and the city would now be in the enjoyment of the salu brity it only had through a fiction.

The importance of a knowledge of the health of a community is only second to the health itself. The amount of information from reliable sources that exists upon this subject in America is exceedingly small; in fact, out of the large cities, Massachusetts excepted, and presently New York, there are no statistics of the sanitary state of the country anywhere to be found, excepting detached monographs in the medical journals, nothing really but prejudiced assertion; and this assertion is, pro and con, either of them widely separated from the truth. Massachusetts has set a noble example in obtaining the actual truth throughout her domain yearly, not only of the sanitary condition, but of the births, marriages, manufactures, agriculture, &c.; in fine of every thing which it concerns the community to know. Her advancing, retrograde, and relative condition, can thus always be known. Suppose each state in the Union had done so since the establishment of our independence, of what immense importance it would have been to the country. We should not then have seen the finest advantages of health and wealth that the God of nature offers to the industry of man hidden from the public view for want of exposure and development, while our valuable population,-the best in the world,-is scattering itself to the ends of the earth in search of what could so readily be found so near our own doors.

The general information in relation to the health of particular sec tions of our Union are entitled to very little reliance; the specific