IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 
63 
other epidemic diseases are the ones in which philan- 
thropists in company with physicians will always take 
a deep interest, but probably the vital statistics concern- 
ing death, which the students of social science will be most 
likely to investigate and philosophize about are those which 
result from violence. The percent of death from violence 
to deaths from all causes in Chicago was 2 in the year 1851, 
7 in the year 1901. The average percent of deaths from 
violence to deaths from all causes during the last 52 years 
was 4. Such deaths are grouped under the following heads : 
By accident, by suicide, by manslaughter, by railroad acci- 
dent, by street car accident. As a matter of course deaths 
from accidents will increase with the amount of labor sav- 
ing machinery used, and with the amount of traveling 
done on railroads, and with the increase of electric street 
cars, which run at rapid rate, and are well patronized. 
The vital statistics in which I am personally interested, and 
am the most inclined to investigate are the deaths by 
suicide, and the deaths by manslaughter, together with 
the physical, mental, social, commercial, and religious in- 
fluences attending them. I trust that in the foregoing 
paper I have sufficiently illustrated the nature of vital 
statistics to show that they can be studied to great advan- 
tage in certain lines of social science. In closing I wish to 
urge upon the members of the Academy the need of 
adequate laws and methods of gathering and of recording 
vital statistics in Iowa, so that they may be fully and 
accurately secured and made accessible to philanthropists 
and to scientific students who may wish to use them. It 
is to be hoped that such a law, as there is on the statute 
books in the commonwealth of Massachusetts, a*nd in some 
of the other states, will be enacted by the Thirty-first 
General Assembly of the state of Iowa, so that in time, 
the vital statistics of this state may be satisfactorily 
compared with the vital statistics of other states and 
countries. 
