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
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

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.

    14/72 (page 8)
    ally, in Franklin County, was 37^ years, showing the force of mortality to be 200 per cent, greater in the one case than in the other. It moreover appears, that, at the same time, in Boston, 812 deaths were caused by scarlatina, showing that that disease, or that form or force of mortality, pressed upon that city with a force equal to 7.96 per cent, of all forms or forces. In like manner may this force be weighed and measured in all its details. The accuracy of the measurement depends, how- ever, upon the degree of accuracy with which the facts are registered and abstracted. To be entirely correct, every birth, every marriage, and every death, which takes place in a given locality, should be recorded. This method of illustration may be applied to the number of births and marriages, with equal propriety, to show the physi- cal condition of a people. The relative number of births to a population is an important element of knowledge, to show whether a people are healthy and prosperous, or otherwise. When it is great, it indicates that the people are depressed in their industrial energies, that disease and death are more fre- quent, and that their pecuniary condition is low. A less num- ber indicates greater energy, less disease and death, more pros- perity, and a higher degree of civilization. So in regard to marriages. The fluctuation in the relative number of marriages, and of the age at marriage, in a country, is a strong indication of the views which the great body of the people take of their prosperity. In times of great prosperity, people become more sanguine, the number of marriages in- creases, and they are contracted at an earlier age. These re- sults are as sure to follow a state of great activity and specu- lation, or stagnation and prudence in the general business matters of the country, as property is to rise or fall in price. And suffering is as sure to follow an excess of marriages, and an undue proportion of imprudent ones, or at too early an age, as it is to follow times of extravagance and of speculation. 4. Registration would ultimately lead to the diminution of disease and the extension of life. Health is a possession capa- ble of increase or diminution, of growth or decay. It, and. even death itself, are, in some measure, within the control of