The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1906-01-17
Health Officer Reardon Behind With
Ills Annual Report, But Has a
Good Excuse.

Health Officer Reardon is behind in
winding up his annual report Of
births and deaths and sanitary statis-
tics, owing in a great measure to the
failure Of some physicians to prompt
ly report. People die and the attend
ing physician IS out OF the city, or very
busy, or sick, n as the official GER
tiGcate Of death canno be obtained,
~ health officer, after investigating
the cause of death, makes a note Of
the case with the attending physician,
and later gets the certificate from the
physician in order not to decay the
funeral or the shipping Of the body,
as the case may be. But towards the
end Of the fiscal year there are q num-
Der Of death certificates short, and
also a greater number of certificates
Of birth, and all of these must DE OBJ
tanned and checked up before a com
plete tabulation can be started. Now
any man who ever had business with
a physician knows what a ~herculean
task it is to get one Of h medical
fraternity to write out a certificate,
but first you have got to find the doc
tor and almost tie him down and put
q revolver in his face and make him
Mvite it cut. And after he starts the
telephone begins to ring and ring, and
the door bell whirrs to beat the band
and somebody gets shot or run over,
or some body's baby gets the collie,
and the hard-worked, good natured
doctor jumps up, grabs his hat and his
case and goes out n you heal 50
chug, chug, toot, toot," as his auto
mobile goes off and a little later as it
gets out Of the gate you hear a pleas
af1t excuse ne. ! VIII see goa later"
fson the doctor. and 1hus.J goes With
Cur doctors. But al Of the death Ger
,:&catcs ser II, Il u nt,:e Iate. Bur
ehe-e are many births never reported
as the health officer has no way to
check up the number of births in a
city except as reported by physicians
and midwives. Some physicians are
very prompt in reporting, but the
physicians with large practices are
hard to manage about reporting GER
tifcates of birth and death.
In regard to reporting serious N
tagious diseases for quarantine, the
Sumter physicians are perhaps among
the best in the world. They not only
promptly report contagious disease,
but they insist upon the proper sani-
tary precautions being taken and back
up the health officer in every way they
can. One OF the chief reasons why
| Sumter never has an outbreak or ep-
;Gemic Of contagious diseases is be-
cause our local physicians in lending
Their efforts and their knowledge to
the prompt suppression Of any conta-
gious disease. Any physician in Sum-
ter, will, no matter how busy. stop to
SO with the health officer to consult
in regard to any suspicious case he is
in doubt about, and they nerec think
Of charging the city for their services,
if the patient is not able to pay. Then
again the amount OF charity work
caeerfal:y done by Sumter physicians
~annuaiiy amounts to hundreds OF dol
:a-s. SC taking it ali IN ali Sumter
physicians are the greatest hackers
the health department has, ana IL they
10 some times fail % repo-. q few
statistics on time they more taan
make up in a thousand other ways.