ORIGIN OF THE COLLECTION. 19 



requiring physicians to register all miscarriages and still-births. For a time it 

 seemed as though this would place a ban upon collecting material in the city, but 

 what appeared at first to be a hindrance later proved to be of great advantage 

 and help; for the departments of health, both in city and State, have since been 

 doing everything in their power to facilitate our work. This is well attested by 

 the following excerpt from the Report of the Commissioner of Health to the mayor 

 and city council of Baltimore, published in October 1913, and sent to every practis- 

 ing physician: 



"We have through this monthly publication called attention of physicians to the 

 requirements of the law concerning the proper registration of all abortions or still-births. 

 We have told you that every abortion or still-birth requires a birth certificate and a 

 death certificate. As in the application of many new laws, we have found that the 

 practical working out of this one has produced occasionally some hardships, particularly 

 on the poorer people, which if they had been anticipated could have been avoided by 

 application for instructions to this department. So I take advantage of this month's 

 publication to inform the physicians that it is not necessary to place their patrons to 

 the expense of having a fetus, born during the period of gestation of less than five months, 

 buried by an undertaker. Of course the body must not be disposed of in an irregular 

 way, such as throwing it down a privy sink or burying it in the yard or cellar, as has 

 been more or less common in the past, but if the fetal body is properly wrapped up and 

 placed in a small box and sent to this department, along with the birth certificate and 

 death certificate, we will see that the body is properly disposed of. I feel quite sure 

 that this arrangement will meet, or certainly ought to meet, all the reasonable objections 

 that can be brought against the enforcement of the new law. 



"One word concerning the specimens desired by Dr. Mall of the Johns Hopkins 

 Medical School. We want in every way to assist Dr. Mall in obtaining the specimens 

 that he so much desires, and this regulation of the department does not in any way 

 interfere with it, but probably may be just as easy and certainly safer in supplying the 

 specimen. Whenever a physician has a specimen to transmit to Dr. Mall, it will not 

 add much to the physician's trouble to stop at the Health Department, which is open 

 at all times, to leave a birth and death certificate and get permission to leave the specimen 

 with Dr. Mall." 



However, this note delayed unduly the sending of young specimens and doubt- 

 ful ones from operations, such as uterine scrappings and tubal pregnancies, and 

 did not, it appears, encourage the reporting of abortions. Later the Department 

 of Health of the State of Maryland permitted the filing of birth and death certifi- 

 cates after the specimen had been sent to this laboratory. Many more abortions 

 are now reported than before, but in order to make the records more complete 

 the following letter was sent out by the Department of Health in November 1916, 

 to all practising physicians in Maryland : 



"From information this Department has received, we are convinced that we are 

 not receiving full reports of still-births. It appears that most physicians do not com- 

 prehend what is embodied in the term 'still-birth,' as used in the Registration Law of 

 this State. For the purpose of learning the extent to which we should expect reports 

 of still-births under this law, I have requested from the Honorable Edgar Allan Poe, 

 Attorney General of the State of Maryland (1912-1916), a legal definition of the term, 

 which I am enclosing herewith. You will note that it is required of you to make a report 



