• SYMPOSIUM ox SANITATION 4| 



almost as valuable, which comes from a careful recording of 

 births and deatlis. To the lawyer, to the parent and to the 

 man of property, they are of the utmost importance. It is 

 difficult to understand why the legal profession of the United 

 States has for years permitted such disgraceful conditions re- 

 garding birth registration, when one considers that on the 

 proper registration of births depend the solution of questions 

 of identity, parentage. legitimacy, descent, inheritance of prop- 

 erty and relationship. In this connection, a number of inter- 

 esting instances have been reported. Dr. J. X. Hurty the 

 ef^cient Secretary of the Indiana State Board of Health, tells 

 of a farmer's daughter, whose father, dying, left his property 

 in trust in the hands of his brother, her uncle, to be turned 

 over to the daughter when she became of age. When her 

 eighteenth birthday arrived, she demanded the property, and 

 was informed by her uncle that she was mistaken regarding 

 her age and she could not gain possession of her father's estate 

 for two years more. She had no record of her birth, both her 

 father and mother were dead, and there seemed no way of 

 establishing her age by evidence. Finally a neighboring far- 

 mer remembered that a calf had been born upon his farm the 

 same week that the girl was born. He produced his stock 

 record showing the date of the birth of the calf, and made affi- 

 davit that the girl was born at the same time, and by the 

 record of the calf's birth the age of the girl was legally es- 

 tablished. 



Another occurence illustrates the importance of proper 

 birth registration. A young German came to this country 

 some fifty years ago. Landing in Xew York, he remained 

 there for a couple of years and married. Later on he came 

 west, with his Avife and baby. The child grew to manhood, 

 and both father and mother died. Recently a German lawyer 

 came to this country looking for heirs to the estate of the 

 father of the young German, the grandfather of the boy. He 

 had no difficulty whatever in locating the young man. who 

 was naturally overjoyed to learn that he was heir to a consid- 

 erable estate. But when an eflfort was made to secure legal 

 evidence of parentage, as well as legal evidence of the mar- 

 riage of the father and mother, no record could be found. The 

 young man knew by family tradition that the wealthy man 

 who had died in Germany was his paternal grandfather but 

 he was unable to produce any evidence that would be ac- 

 ceptable to the German authorities, and as a result, the entire 

 estate was lost to him. 



Registration of deaths is equally important from a legal 

 standpoint. It frequently becomes necessary not only to 



