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10,000, but has never come above 3,000, while the ordinary dairyman's milk often goes to 500,000 or 1,000,000. This is the difference between pure milk, which is a nourishing food, and a filthy solution, which is the cause of much of the indigestion and malnutrition in children.

Laws will always be necessary to protect the public against themselves and unscrupulous producers, and should be strictly enforced; but a recognition by the consumers that pure milk is worth more than impure is also necessary.

The care of milk at the home is also an important factor. The milkpan is sometimes the last dish washed, and, without scalding, is wiped upon a towel that has done service for all the other dishes, and, the milk having been poured in, it is set where flies can take a drink, and even mice occasionally refresh themselves from it. The careless maid may also leave it on the table or shelf while she sweeps the floor, and it catches the dust filled with all kinds of unmentionable filth. The pan should be thoroughly washed with soap and warm water and scalded with boiling water and dried with a clean towel. After receiving the milk, one should protect it from the contaminating influence of animals, insects, or dirt, for the dirt allowed to enter after the milk has been received at the house is as bad as that entering it before. Buy pure, clean milk, and keep it clean, and much sickness of children will be prevented.

Vol. I.

MONTHLY BULLETIN.

Entered as second-class matter August 15, 1905, at the post office at
Sacramento, California, under the Act of Congress of July 16, 1894.

SACRAMENTO, NOVEMBER, 1905.

No. 6.

STATE BOARD OF HEALTH.

MARTIN REGENSBURGER, M.D., President,
WALLACE A. BRIGGS, M.D., Vice-President,

F. K. AINSWORTH, M.D.
San Francisco A. C. HART, M.D.
O. STANSBURY, M.D..
Sacramento W. LE MOYNE WILLS, M.D.
N. K. FOSTER, M.D., Secretary
Sacramento
HON. W. I. FOLEY, Attorney..

STATE BUREAU OF VITAL STATISTICS.

San Francisco
Sacramento
..Chico
Los Angeles

Los Angeles

N. K. FOSTER, M.D., State Registrar..Sacramento | GEORGE D. LESLIE, Statistician....Sacramento

STATE HYGIENIC LABORATORY.

ARCHIBALD R. WARD, D.V.M., Director.

University of California, Berkeley

NOTICE TO REGISTRARS.

New Numbers for Certificates.-The attention of Local Registrars is drawn to the requirement of the registration law that new series of numbers be started for the certificates of births, marriages, and deaths filed with them each calendar year. The Local Registrar, after transmitting to the State Registrar the certificates for December, 1905, should put the number 1 on the first certificate of death filed with him in January, 1906. The same rule of course applies to certificates of births and marriages. Since the certificates are indexed separately and systematically in the State Bureau of Vital Statistics, it is immaterial if an occasional birth, marriage, or death taking place late in 1905 is numbered by the Local Registrar in the new series for 1906.

VITAL STATISTICS FOR NOVEMBER.

Summary. For November, vital statistics were reported from fiftytwo counties with a population estimated conservatively at 1,663,995. There were 1,699 living births, 2,153 deaths exclusive of stillbirths not tabulated, and 1,243 marriages, or 2,486 persons married. These figures represent an annual birth-rate of 12.4, a death-rate of 15.7, and a marriage rate of 9.1, or 18.2 persons married, per 1,000 population.

The leading specific cause of death, as usual, was tuberculosis, followed by heart disease and pneumonia. Tuberculosis is especially prevalent in Southern California (Santa Barbara, Ventura, Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Orange, Riverside, and San Diego counties), where 32.9 per cent of the deaths from this disease occurred against only 24.2 per cent of the total deaths. However, 19.5 per cent of those who died of tuberculosis in Southern California had lived in the State less than a year and altogether 53.7 per cent had lived here less than 10 years, as compared with only 3.2 and 17.7 per cent, respectively, for Northern California. North of Tehachapi the great bulk of the victims of this disease were native Californians or old inhabitants, while in the south a majority were comparatively recent residents of the Golden State.

Causes of Death. The table below shows the number of deaths reported for November, by principal classes, for the State as a whole and also for Northern or Superior California in contrast with the seven counties of Southern California. For convenience in comparison, the proportion of deaths from each class per 10,000 from all causes is likewise given:

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There is little difference between Northern and Southern California in the proportion of deaths caused by diseases of the circulatory system, of the genito-urinary system, and violence. However, Northern California exceeds in the proportion of deaths caused by diseases of the nervous and respiratory systems, in which the principal specific diseases are respectively apoplexy and pneumonia. On the other hand, Southern California exceeds in the proportions for general diseases, especially tuberculosis and diseases of the digestive system, including diarrhea and enteritis. The contrast between Northern and Southern California is particularly great for other than epidemic general diseases, the class in which the principal specific disease is tuberculosis. The proportion of all deaths from diseases of this class was 2,316 for Northern California against 2,802 for Southern California, an excess of 486 in the proportion for the latter.

The following table gives for California as a whole the number of deaths from the leading specific diseases, together with the proportion per 10,000 from all causes:

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The main cause of death, as usual, was tuberculosis, with heart disease and pneumonia next in order. Tuberculosis is especially prevalent in Southern California, as appears from the following figures:

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No less than 32.8 per cent of the deaths from tuberculosis occurred in Southern California against only 24.4 per cent of the total deaths, an excess of 8.6 in the per cent for tuberculosis. In this connection, however, it should be noted that deaths of recent residents from tuberculosis are particularly frequent in Southern California. This is shown by the table below giving the number and per cent of tuberculosis victims by length of residence in California for both parts of the State:

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The table shows that of those who died of tuberculosis in Southern California 19.5 per cent had lived in the State less than a year and altogether 53.7 per cent had lived here less than 10 years. The corre

sponding per cents for Northern California were 3.2 and 17.7 and for the entire State were 8.5 and 29.5, respectively. The great bulk of those who died of tuberculosis in Northern California were natives of the State or others of long-standing residence, 34.8 per cent being native Californians and 38.0 per cent others who had lived here at least 10 years. For Southern California the corresponding per cents were only 14.8 and 19.5, respectively.

CLEAN CAMPS FOR CALIFORNIA.

The State Board of Health is, as fast and as thoroughly as possible, making an investigation of the sanitary conditions of the different streams and summer resorts of the State. It recognizes in these streams and resorts California's greatest health-giving asset, and that a summer spent in them will do more to restore health and prolong life than any other way it could possibly be spent.

In order that the maximum good can be secured with the minimum danger, the streams must be kept clean and the camps in perfect sanitary condition. This, however, is not always the case. Indeed, many of the streams are polluted to a superlative degree and the camps along them are reeking with filth. This is often the result of conditions grow

ing so gradually as hardly to be noticed by the proprietor or those using the camp. The results of polluted water and bad sanitary conditions are the same whether the conditions arise from ignorance, carelessness, or greed, and these results are frequently a siege of typhoid fever.

The Board desires to encourage life in the open air, firmly believing that such a life will do more for the general health of the people than any other thing; but it believes it to be its duty to warn against such resorts and localities as persistently refuse to better their sanitary conditions and hence endanger life. It is not our intention to publicly denounce any place until it has been investigated and notified and then refuses or neglects to remedy the defect.

It is encouraging to notice that most proprietors are willing and anxious to adopt any proposition that will better the condition of their resort. Some are rebellious and bluntly refuse to do anything.

The policy of the Board will be to thoroughly inform itself as to the facts, notify the parties in charge of any needed sanitary improvements, and wait a reasonable time for an effort at compliance. If not made in good faith publicity will be made of the conditions and where necessary the laws will be enforced. The Board is frequently consulted by parties. desiring to know the healthfulness of the different localities, and it will strive to be posted and give reliable information.

It is interesting to know that the necessity of keeping our streams clean and pure has strong advocates outside the health departments. The following from Josephine Kinney Walker, chairman of the Purity of Streams Committee of the California Club of San Francisco, should be read by everybody, and no one can tell how many lives would be saved if its warnings were heeded:

Children:

A PLEA FOR PURE STREAMS.

Notice the beauty of the flowing streams; think well about their uses. Cultivate a respect for them; they are nature's irrigation plants, homes of the fish, delight of the birds, water-carriers for man and beast, singing as they serve.

Running waters are life-savers. Throw nothing into them to contaminate, poison, and make them life-destroyers. It is selfish, vulgar, even criminal.

Picknickers:

Your enjoyment is lacking without the streams; why destroy their fringed edges, spoil their shade, or render water unsightly with trash?

Campers:

Dig holes to receive all rubbish; neutralize and bury, or burn refuse. Do not burden the streams with it. The birds may claim a share of broken food. Leave no fires unattended.

Housekeepers:

Empty no tubs, cleanings of either fish, fowl, animal, fruit, vegetable, or dairy into your adjacent stream, even though dry. It is not dry in winter.

Farmers:

Do not use arroyos or dry chasms for vaults, looking to storms to cleanse them. Think of your neighbor below. Consider the milk supply and the poisoned water for the stock. Resolve or burn, and fertilize. Try changing stable waste heap and corral yearly and absorb drainage into rank growth of field corn or pumpkins. These will pay you, besides protecting the streams. Study the Pasadena sewer-farm methods. Change and growth purify, and nothing is lost.

Farms, Schools, Summer Resorts, Camp Grounds, Logging and Mining Camps, Villages: Allow no drains to reach your streams. India gives us warning. Surface sewage, unresolved, has poisoned her soil and her waters.

The early inhabitants of America gave to the waters due respect. Indian shellmounds and bone-heaps stand as monuments to their care of the streams.

From dripping spring or mountain glacier to the sea, our streams call for protection.

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