Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1891-04-26
OUR MoRTUARY REPORTS.
Interesting Suggestions from Doctor of
Medicine,
? Editor of he Dispatch

To he Editor Of ne Dispatch:
You recently published some extracts
from the last annual report of the Board
of Health of Richmond, two of which We
copy;
naturally lead strangers to conclude that
Richmond is very unhealthy"
but we have colored population OF
IS, 900, whose natural tendency TO scrofula
and consumption is frequently developed
by the factOry-work," &c.
Hence the necessity OF discriminating
count. Last week your board excluded
one death from accident, the child run
over by a wagon, unless that case was re-
ported as the one from "shock," which Is
probable, and added one death from
cocaine and one from suffocation, making
in even numbers thirty-one deaths per
thousand per annum, whereas the proper
ton need not have been over twenty-nine.
These three deaths might have been add
ed TO the Coroner's statistics and not gone
TO swell the death-rate from disease.
Your board cannot afford to keep up
such counting in city where there are so
many negroes, and for purposes of accu-
racv it is not necessary.
one death in every Rlirty-t,rO and a fraction
of persons is q higher rate of mortality
than is caused by many severe epidemics
DuI SuCu WAS tIt ouONlif- Va OOuI oOdlu
of Health last week.
You may close the wells and springs, re-
move the slaughter-pens, completely arch
in Gillie's creek, employ much larger
force TO remove garbage, &C., employ a
sanitary inspector of plumbing: you may
close those beautiful "cities of the dead
now in your midst and plant a thick cor
don of trees about them. but what will
these measures avail unless q reform is
made in the counting OF your mortuary
statistics
Especially will the stranger coming from
London, whose death rate is about one
half as much as Richmond's, conclude
that Richmond is very unhealthy. He
does not know that the negro constitutes
nearly one half of your population, and
that the negro has natural tendency to
scrofula and consumption, and unfortu-
nAtely these explanations may not be made
to him.
II is highly improbable that such an
apology will be made to him outside of
Richmond. T. X. T..
LINCOLN. Va, April %, 1891.
We would not have our board exclude
from the general table the deaths from &C
cidents, unless il is the common practice to
do so. Charleston. S. O., we know excludes
such deaths, but We are not informed that
the majority of the cities of this country
do. II it is the custom, then we, too,
should adopt it.
Ii IS true that the negroes constitute
about two ffths of our population. but
in Petersburg, and, perhaps, in LynchburS,
the proportion of negroes to whites is
larger still and yet their death rate-and
the death rate of the population as an
entrety-is smaller than ours as reported
by the United States Marine Hospital
Bureau. Dozens of other cities have as
large q proportion of colored people as
Richmond has. but we speak ofPetersburg
and Lynchburg because they are both
large obacco-manufacturing cities and are
not very distant from us.
So far as we can understand this ques-
tion-and it is statistical rather than medi-
cal-no very satisfactory explanation of
our surprising position in the Bureaus
tabulation has yet been given.
While the subject is under discussion
we might as well probe it to the bottom.
Certainly there is no reason why the ne
groes of Richmond should not be as
healthy as the people of their race living
anywhere else on the face of the globe.
We have all been beating around for OK
plantations OF the Bureaus statement. but
so far as we can see our Board of Health is
free from blame.