LOCAL BOARDS OF HEALTH.

It has been customary to place in the annual report of the State Board a digest of such matters of special interest as appear in the annual reports of local boards of health to their respective municipal authorities under the title of Health of Towns. An examination of the material presented in the present year shows in the reports of these boards a very marked progress in sanitary matters in many directions.

In six of the larger cities of the State special mention is made of the urgent need of isolation hospitals. During the past year the city of Worcester has completed an excellent contagious disease hospital in a well-selected location, which is now doing good service in caring for persons sick with infectious diseases. There are now at least eight cities and towns furnished with these useful institutions.

Another important matter which appears in these reports is the supervision of the production and sale of milk by the local boards, including the inspection of the dairies and the animals where the milk is produced. The recent discussion of this question at the meetings of the Massachusetts Association of Boards of Health has evidently borne good fruit.

The law in regard to the supervision of bakeries recently enacted has been recognized by the local boards, and inspections and improvements have been made in these establishments in most of the cities.

Formaldehyde has been quite generally introduced as a gaseous disinfectant for apartments by local boards in place of sulphur dioxide, and in one city (Newton) experiments have been conducted to determine its efficiency and are reported in the annual report of the local board of that city.

In all the cities antitoxin has been used, furnished by the State Board, and favorable results are generally reported from its use.

In most of the large cities bacteriological laboratories have been established as auxiliaries to the work of the local boards in determining the character of such infectious diseases as it is possible to decide upon by this means. The State Board conducts a similar line of work for many other cities and towns which are not thus provided.

In Boston, Cambridge and Newton a systematic medical inspection of schools is conducted, following the plan inaugurated by the Boston board of health.

In one city (North Adams) action has been taken by the local board of health, under the provisions of chapter 338 of the Acts of 1895, with reference to the sale of ice from polluted sources of supply.

Special attention is called in several reports to the need of improved means of garbage disposal in some of the larger cities. Thus far Lowell is the only city in the State which has maintained continuously for several years an establishment for the destruction of garbage by fire. A brief extract from the report of the local board of health upon this subject may be found in the section of this report upon the Health of Towns.

Several reports mention the subject of limiting the keeping of swine in populous districts, and local boards have provided regulations to prevent nuisance from this cause.

In several of the larger cities facilities for bathing have been offered to the inhabitants, by means either of open-air establishments or, as in Boston and Brookline, by bath-houses for use both in summer and winter. The new public bath-house at Brookline is a model in its equipment, and furnishes not only the means for bathing for both sexes, but facilities for instruction in the healthful and life-saving art of swimming.

At the summer bathing establishments in Boston, 18 in number, in 1897, the whole number of baths recorded during the season was 657,275.

THE REGISTRATION OF VITAL STATISTICS.

In the last report of the Board a very full summary of the vital statistics of the State was presented, embracing a period of forty years (1856-95). Hence the following summary relates chiefly to the additional figures for 1896.

Assuming that the rate of growth from 1890 to 1895 has been continued to 1896, the population for 1896 is estimated to have been 2,555,987. The following table presents in a condensed form the vital statistics of the State for the fifty years 1847-96:

A HALF CENTURY OF REGISTRATION.

Marriages, Births and Deaths in MASSACHUSETTS (1847-1896), with Population and Rates per 1,000 Living.

1848,†

936,838 5,287 16,515 15,609
4,015 12,540 12,475

17.17

19.58

26.70

9,747

20.80
23.44 28.10 18.55
22.10 28.45
23.86 28.76
24.80 29.00
21.77 29.01
21.30 29.91 18.00 11.91
20.05 30.16 18.17 11.99
17.68 28.97 17.45 11.52
18.96

21.16 5.54 27.82 16.70 11.12

9.55 17.64 10.81 18.88 9.88 19.41 9.59

18.37 10.64

29.26 17.33 11.93

20.15

29.28 18.74 10.54

17.72

28.63 19.45

9.17

965,245 6,936 25,773 20,423 5,350
994,514 10,345 27,664 16,606 11,058
1,020,673 11,966 28,681 18,934
1,047,520 11,578 29,802 | 18,482 11,320
1,075,072 12,828 30,920 20,301 10,619
1,103,350 13,683 31,997 21,414 10,583
1,132,369 12,329 32,845 20,798 12,047
1,151,461 12,265 34,445 20,734 13,711
1,170,864 11,739 35,320 21,280 14,040
1,190,584 10,527 34,491 20,776 13,715
1,210,657 11,475 35,422 20,976 14,446
1,231,066 12,404 36,051 23,068 12,983
1,238,177 10,972 35,445 24,085 11,360
1,245,328 11,014 32,275 22,974 9,301
1,252,521 10,873 30,314 27,751 2,563
1,259,756 12,513 30,449 28,753
1,267,031 13,051 30,249 26,152
1,302,992 14,428 34,085 23,637 10,448
1,339,976 14,451 35,062 22,772 12,290
1,378,010 13,856 36,193 25,603 10,590
1,417,125 14,826 36,141 26,054 10,087
1,457,351 14,721 38,259 27,329 10,930 20.20 26.25
1,494,334 15,746 39,791 27,943 11,848
1,532,258 16,142 43,235 35,019 8,216
1,571,146 16,437 44,481 33,912 10,569
1,611,022 15,564 45,631 31,887 13,744
1,651,912 13,663 43,996 34,978 9,018
1,677,351 12,749 42,149 33,186 8,963
1,703,182 12,758 41,850 31,342 10,508
1,729,410 12,893 41,238 31,303
1,756,042 13,802 40,295 31,801
1,783,085 15,538 44,217 35,292
1,813,818 16,768 45,220 36,458
8,762
1,845,081 17,684 45,670 36,785 8,885
1,876,883 18,194 47,285 37,748 9,537
1,909,233 17,333 48,615 36,990 11,625
1,942,141 17,052 48,790 38,094 10,696
1,998,174 18,018 50,788 37,244 13,544
2,055,823 19,533 53,174 40,763 12,411
2,115,136 19,739 54,893 42,097 12,796
2,176,159 20,397 57,075 41,777 15,298
2,238,943 20,838 57,777 43,528 14,249
2,288,911 21,675 63,004 45,185 17,819
2,339,993 22,507 65,824 48,762 17,062
2,392,216 22,814 67,192 49,084 18,108
2,445,604 20,619 66,936 46,791 20,145
2,500,183 23,102 67,545 47,540 20,005

*The statistics of the first two years of registration given in the foregoing table are for the years ending with April 30 of each year.

The second line of statistics for 1848 is for the eight months ending Dec. 31, 1848. The statistics for 1849 and for each of the following years are for the calendar years ending December 31.

All estimates of inter-censal years are made by the geometric rate of increase.

The vital statistics of the first seven years of registration (1842-1848), together with the returns of marriages for 1849, must be regarded as extremely defective; many of the returns from Suffolk County for this period are wanting, together with those of some of the small towns. From the year 1849 onward the omissions probably constitute but a small percentage only of the total registration.

The figures for the population of Census years are given in bold type.

Marriages.

The marriages registered in 1896 were 23,651, a number greater than those of any previous year. The marriage rate upon the foregoing estimate was 18.5 per 1,000 of the living population, which was slightly higher than that of 1895.

Nativity. Of the whole number of persons married whose nativity was known 55.2 per cent. were of native and 44.8 per cent. were of foreign birth. Estimating the increase in the sexes at the same rate as that of the previous five years, the marriage-rates of the two groups were very nearly the same as those of 1895, those of the natives being 14.84 per 1,000 and that of persons of foreign birth 26.84 per 1,000. The difference being partly accounted for by differences in the age constitution of the two groups (see twentyeighth annual report, page 728).

Season. The following table presents the number of marriages in each month of the year, the daily number in each month and the centesimal ratio in each month (or, in other words, the number which would have occurred in each month upon a basis of 100 as a daily mean throughout the year). From a comparison with table 17 on page 730, twenty-eighth annual report, it appears that the month of June has grown in popular favor as a month for marrying, the figures having been as follows: for the twenty years 1856-75, the centesimal ratio for June was 104.1; for the next twenty years, 1876-95, it was 126.2; for the single year 1895 it was 151.5 and for 1896, 161.3, as compared with a daily mean of 100 for the year. On the other hand the month of November has diminished in favor from a centesimal ratio of 151.6 in the first twenty years to 147.8 in the second twenty years and 144.7 in 1895 and 137 in 1896.

Births.

The births registered in 1896 were 72,343, or 4,798 more than those of the preceding year. The birth-rate, upon an estimate of 2,555,989 inhabitants, was 28.3 per 1,000. This was a higher rate than that of any preceding year since 1874.

Sex. Of the whole number of living infants born in 1896 the sex of which was known 37,186 were males and 35,114 were females, which was in the ratio of 1,056 males to 1,000 females. That of the forty-year period 1856-95 was very nearly the same (1,055 males per 1,000 females). If the still-births are included these figures are a little higher in each instance (1,073 for the single year 1896 and 1,066 for the forty-year period 1856-95).

The following table presents the ratio of males to females of living and of still-births for the years 1895 and 1896 and for the tenyear period 1887-96:

Nativity. Of the whole number of living births, 22,810 were of native, 34,237 of foreign, and 15,033 were of mixed parentage. Estimating the growth of each group of the population in the same manner as that of the whole population, and distributing the children of mixed birth proportionally between the two groups, the birthrates were 17.2 for the native and 53.1 for the foreign population. These very great differences are explained in the last annual report, page 737.

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Seasons. The following table presents the seasonal distribution of the births for the year 1896: