The Prescott daily news., 1914-12-01
VITAL STATISTICS

The following paper was prepared and read by Miss Smart at the second annual meeting of the Arkansas Health officers held in Little Rock on November "A and 25th.
 Vital Statistics have rightly been called the Bookkeeping of Humani- ty," and may be defined as statistics relating to the life histories of com munities or nations. They pertain to those events which have to do with the origin, continuation and termination of the lives of the inhabitants. They commonly include statistics of births, marriages, and deaths, and the con- ditions attending these events.
 Guilfoy has given descriptive defi- milton which in slightly abbreviated form is that Vital Statistics are the numerical registration and tabula- tion of population, marriages, births diseases, and deaths, coupled with an alyses of the resulting numerical phenomena"
 Uses of Birth Registration and Sta
 tistics.
 Birth statistics are of use in ascer- taining the natural increase of the population (excess of births over deaths). They also give valuable in formation regarding the effective fer tility of the race and of the frequency of illegitimacy. The possession of birth statistics also furnishes the ba- sis for the present accepted means of stating the infant mortality rate. The data from which the statistics are made, the registered births, are on the other hand of value to the com munity in many ways, and to the health officer among others may be especially useful. Some of the uses are herein enumerated.
 Legal Record.-The registration of a child's birth form legal record that is frequently useful and may be of the greatest importance. It establish es the date of birth and the child's parentage and legitimacy. It may be required to establish the child's age for attendance at public schools, for permission to work in states where children below a certain age are not allowed by law to be employed, to know whether a girl has reached the age of consent; whether individuals have attained the age when they may marry without the parents permis- sion; to establish age in connection with the granting of pensions, mili- tary and jury duty, and voting. It may be necessary in connection with the bequeathing and inheritance of property or to furnish acceptable evi- dence of genealogy, and in fact may be important and useful in possible events too numerous to mention.
 Uses of Death Registration.
 Death registration serves a num- Der of highly important purposes. Its functions are legal, economic and so- cial. Death registration is useful in preventing and detecting crimes through the restrictions placed upon the disposal of dead bodies. It serves as evidence in the inheritance of pro perty and in the settlement of life H. surance contracts and policies and pension claims. It is only proper that the time, place, and cause of death of each individual should be made a permanent record for both sentimental and legal reasons. Along this line, will state that this Bureau. regardless of the fact that it has been in existence only ten months, having commenced operations Feb. l, 1914, has issued thirty three death certi- fcates in the matter of pension claims life insurance, etc. Numerous re- quests have been received by us for data prior to the establishment of this Bureau, which we haze been un- able to furnish, having no permanent records to which we cou'l refer.
 Death registration makes it possi- ble to show by mathematical compu- tations and statistical methods the ex- tent and rate of change in population produced by deaths; the average du- ration of life; and to the extent that the certified causes of death have been correctly stated, the relative ire quency with which the several causes produce death. Death statistics by cOmDariSOn with birtb ctatiSticc oixya