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## 1939 Physicians' Handbook

A 1939 Physician's Handbook instructed how to accurately recordvital statistics data.

In 1939, the U.S. Census Bureau issued this *Physicians' Handbook on Birth and Death Registration* to help doctors properly record all of the births and deaths they attended, including classifying the cause of death.

For decades, states collected vital statistics and sent them to the Census Bureau for analysis.  In an effort to standardize states' data collection, the Census Bureau published this and other guides prior to transferring vital records analysis to the U.S. Public Health Service in 1946.  

Learn more about interesting census-related artifacts on the Census Bureau's social media pages using the tag #ArtifactFriday.  For previous #ArtifactFriday posts, visit the History Web site's Artifacts pages.

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