Report of the joint special committee of the Legislature of Massachusetts appointed to consider the expediency of modifying the laws relating to the registration of births, marriages, and deaths : presented March 3, 1849.

Massachusetts. General Court.

Date:: 1849

Credit: Report of the joint special committee of the Legislature of Massachusetts appointed to consider the expediency of modifying the laws relating to the registration of births, marriages, and deaths : presented March 3, 1849. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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$3. Registration would exhibit the physical condition of the people. Human health is not equally vigorous, nor human life equally extended, in all localities, nor in all circumstances. There are various causes which impair the one, and shorten the other. The natural or artificial position of the place, the atmosphere and the seasons of the year, the number and the density of the population, their degree of wealth or poverty, their occupations and the manner in which their occupations are pursued, the sex and age of those employed, their food, clothing, habits, and manner of life, the moral influences in which they live, and various other circumstances, may be such as to influence, favorably or unfavorably, the health and lives of the people. A knowledge of all these circumstances, as they may exist in all the towns in this State, would be of im- mense consequence to our people. It would be of great practi- cal importance to know in what place, among what class of our population, and under what circumstances, epidemic or other diseases, are most likely to prevail, to destroy life, or weaken the productive energies of the people, or to extend life and promote their vigor and increase their power. There is a mode by which all this information may be obtained, and by which the force of mortality, pressing upon a people, may be weighed and measured. This may be done by means of an enumeration of the number and ages of the living, and an accurate registration of the localities, circumstances, and causes of death, and an intelligible abstract of these facts. The facts we already possess will illustrate this matter. It appears, from accurate investigations, that, of 100 deaths in two different places, of the same population, 40 may take place in one and 60 in the other, showing that mortality presses upon the one with fifty per cent, greater force than upon the other. Of 16,414 deaths which occurred in Boston, in the period—1831 to 1840, only 6.46 per cent, occurred in June, while 10.74 per cent, occurred in September, showing that mortality pressed with 66.25 per cent, greater force in the latter than in the former month. The average age of the deceased in the Catholic burials in Boston, for ten years, was only \2\ years, while the average age of the deceased in the burials of the people gener-$