The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1883-01-13
COMMUNICATED


A writer in one of your calls
attention to the great discrepancy. between the
Board of Health Mortuary reports, and those
published under the direction of the Board of
Education, and asks who can explain this
strange discrepany."
1 think can throw a little light on this
subject, and propose to do SO and show that
there is more probability of the Board of Edu-
cation school teachers making mistakes than the
one agent of the Board of Health. The births
and deaths for the district of Kona, including
Honolulu, for the last three years are according
to the Board of Education reports, as follows:
Births, for the year 1880, were 1897, and the
deaths 1852; for the year 1881, the births were
1412, and the deaths 1860; and for the year
1882, the births were 1888 and the deaths 612.
Can the writer in your contemporary tell US
why there should be in 1880 and 1881, nearly
twice the number of births that they were in
1882? And why there should have been in 1880
1--WE will not count 1881, that being the year of
smallpox nearly twice the number OF deaths than
were in 1882. The population for 1890 and 1881
was of course less than in 1882, so il makes the
discrepancy in the Board of Education Teachers
reports still more glaring. By reference to Cap
tain J.. Browns mortuary reports for $50, 1881,
and 1882, will be found the following numbers of
deaths for each year respectively, 607, smallpox
year S1Sl, 542. 1t will be noticed that the dis
crepany between the Education reports and the
Agent of the Board of Health for 1880 was 555,
that for 1881 was 442, that for 1882 was 20. How
is this ? The Board of Health Agents reports
show a great regularity while those of the Board
of Education show as great an irregular;ty. That
there should be a moderate discrepancy between
the two reports is readily understood when it is
known that the Agent of the Board of Health
reports does not include, and the Board of Edu-
cation does, the outlying sections of the District
of Kona, neither does it include, as the Board
of Education does, the number of still-born
children, of which there are many in the dis
trict. The writer in your contemporary says
also that basing his figures on the Board of Ed
ucation report of deaths for 1880, viz, 1852, the
death rate was "72.62 per thousand, two and
three-fourths as many times proportionally as in
New York City for the same year"
Now will the same writer please say what the
death rate for 1882 is, making his calculation on
the Board of Education report for 1882, viz: 612
deaths, and allowing for considerable increase of
population during the past two years and then
tell US why it is less than half what it was in
1880, that year being a healthy one-l879 being
the year of malarial fever and 1881 that OF small
pox? Why there should be SO many deaths put
down to - unknown " causes is, l think, plain
to most thinking people. There is no law here
requiring the certificate ofa physician as to cause
of death, and when a death Is reported to the
Board Of Health Agent he has TO Judge from the
description given by the applicant for burial cer-
tifcate what the cause was, and in a great many
cases the friends OF the deceased don't know
themselves. If there was a law compelling the
requirement of a physicians certificate of cause
of death, before a burial certificate was granted
by the Agent. every death would be reported,
and what is more, the people, knowing that a
physicians certificate had to be obtained, would
in most cases be obliged to call in a physician be-
fore death, and by so doing be would no doubt
often be in time to perhaps save life; so that this
law would obviate the necessity of putting in the
mortuary report i" causes unknown and I'M
attended. K.