The Lakeland evening telegram. (Lakeland, Fla.) 1911-1922, 1916-09-21
SOME DRY FACTS

PIoTlud mas population OF 9Zl,-
61S.
Such is the result of the count
made by State authority in 1915, the
f~nrt of which has recently been
pu ID by the Department of
AeflOlI1lte. AS compared with the
United States census of 1910, it
shows an increase of 10000, or
22.5 per cent, the greatest growth in
any five-year period in Florida's his
tory
4 Leaving out of the count individ-
uals of other races and State con-
victs. amounting in all to about two
thousand, there were 559,237 whites
and 36O,3S5 negroes. Of both races,
492,120 were old enough to vote,
and 42S,502 were under age The
291,S28 white males outnumbered
the 267,959 white females by ma
jority of 23,S69, and there were A.
1877 more males than females among
the negro race.
= There is lot more of these dry
but rather uninteresting facts to be
drawn from a study of this report,
but the average reader SHES at fig
ures and shudders at percentages.
However, the abstracts given indi-
cate that, in spite of more or less
adverse economic conditions, Flor
ida's growth for the last five years
has been at a rate never equaled in
the past.
Such then is the rather mixed pop
ulation whose physical welfare is the
charge of the State Board of Health.
The expenditures of the Board for
1915 averaged approximately 13.
cents for every man, woman and
There is at present no machinery
by which the exact, or even the APP
proximate death rate of the State
can be determined, but basing an es-
innate upon the reports from those
cities in which accurate statistics
are kept, it is Is for each 1000 of
the entire population, and according
to races, it is 1871 for the whites and
10 for the colored race. In the cities
with population above 10000, it is
17.7-14-6 for the whites and 23.4
for the negroes.
Reports received from those cities
of Florida which have realized the
importance of keeping accurate rec
ords of health matters, show the rel
alive fatality of various diseases, and
these results may fairly be taken as
repres1of anG Conditions in the entire
STATE {f etUulosis claimed more
I at01< l55 than any other dis
rs disease came next;
GrG2 e of the heart followed.
DiarrhoSd and enteritis (under two
years), cancer and other malignant
tumors, pneumonia, pellagra, tyA
phoid fever, influenza, broncho-pneu-
monia, syphilis, malaria, diphtheria
and Group whooping cough and
measles followed in order as the
causes of death. Not a death from
smallpox occurred in the State in
1915. Deaths from violence, still
births and those following child
birth are omitted from this enumer-
alton.
The death rate from typhoid few
er, from pulmonary tuberculosis and
other forms OF tuberculosis, and from
pneumonia is markedly lower than
in the States named and in most
of the northern States. It is higher
frcm malaria Excepting in North
!Gerclinal, from influenza, from pei
lagra fexcepting in North Carolina),
from syphilis and Bright's disease.
These and other scores Of facts
that might be deduced from the pub
lished authentic reports are proofs
OF the high rank that Florida holds
among the States of the Union for
healthfulness It has decided ad-
vantage over mary of them in the
low rate of mortality from typhoid
fever, cons.1epption and pneumonia,
in spite OF ~ fact that hundreds of
tuberculart dferers come annually
to Floride hoping for benefit and
relief, and death in their adopted
State is the final result.