SYMPOSIUM OX SANITATION 37 



viding for the registration ot births and deaths, including the 

 uniform death certificate, and introducing the international 

 nomenclature of diseases. This bill has since been endorsed 

 by the American Medical Association and its Section on Pre- 

 ventive Medicine and Public Health by the Bureau of Cen- 

 sus of the United States Government, by the American Public 

 Health Association, the American Statistical Association, the 

 American Association for the Study and Prevention of Infant 

 Mortality, the National Conservation Congress, the American 

 Federation of Labor, the General Federation of Women's 

 Clubs, the Commission on Uniform Laws of the American 

 Piar Association, and a large number of other organizations 

 interested in improving public health conditions. This bill 

 is drafted in harmony with the experience oi public health of- 

 ficers, statisticians, sanitarians, lawyers, judges, administra- 

 tors and all others whose views and co-operation could be 

 secured. Since it was drafted in 1906. the registration area 

 for deaths has increased from AO per cent, to 63.1 per cent. 



So much for the history for this movement. Let us now 

 consider briefly, some practical reasons why every citizei 

 should be interested in securing adequate birth and death 

 registration for Illinois. On account of the general interest 

 in this subject on the part of physicians, and because birth 

 and death certificates are necessarily signed by them, the 

 public has assumed that this is a question which is of interest 

 to physicians alone. When the public, and especially the 

 members of the state legislatures see physicians, both individ- 

 ually and as representatives of medical organizations, appear 

 before legislative committees in dififerent states, year after 

 year, they naturally assume that birth and death registration 

 is a subject in which physicians have some selfish, personal 

 interest, else they would not devote so much time and effort 

 to endeavoring to secure laws on this subject. Yet. the fact 

 is. that with the exception of their interest as citizens, phy- 

 sicians have probably less interest in endeavoring to secure 

 laws on this subject than almost any other class of citizens. It 

 is no special advantage to physicians, as a class or as indi- 

 viduals, to know the exact number of births and deaths, while 

 the greater part of the labor of filling out. birth and death 

 certificates falls on the family doctor. The fact that this work 

 is generally done without compensation, and that the general 

 feeling among physicians and in medical organizations i:> 

 against compensation for such work, only makes the situa- 

 tion all the more striking. 



"Why have physicians and medical organizations inter- 

 ested themselves in securing the registration of births and 

 deaths, and what reasons are there, aside from sentimental 



