work, a record of social legislation, and all announcements of importance for those actively interested in social welfare activities. The publication is sponsored by a Board of which Mr. Herbert Hoover is chairman and among whose members are Miss Lillian D. Wald, of the Henry Street Settlement; Mr. James H. Post, of the new Federation of Protestant Child-Caring Institutitions; Rev. Bryan J. McEntegart, of the Catholic Charities; Mrs. Sidney C. Borg, of the Federation of Jewish Philanthropic Societies; Commissioner Bird S. Coler, of the Department of Public Welfare; Dr. Thomas J. Riley, of the Brooklyn Bureau of Charities; Mr. William Fellowes Morgan, of the Merchants Association and the United Hospital Fund, and Mr. Lawson Purdy, of the Charity Organization Society. Mr. George J. Hecht is the editor of the new bulletin, and Mrs. Gertrude H. Springer, managing editor. The publication is not a commercial enterprise, being issued through the joint efforts of the various social welfare organizations and for their benefit. A free sample copy will be sent to anyone interested on request. The offices are at 100 Gold Street, New York. IMMIGRANTS MUST BE REASONABLY CLEAN. Although when typhus and plague subside in Europe (as they must eventually) the menace of the vermin-bearing immigrant will practically disappear, still the U. S. Public Health Service will continue to insist that travellers to this country must be reasonably clean when they embark, regardless of any infection to which they are known to have been exposed. The louse is, of course, quite as common in some quarters of the larger American cities as it is in the European slums; and it is dangerous only when it has become infected, which it can be only by biting an infected person and absorbing his germladen blood. If all typhus patients, for instance in this country, be promptly isolated and kept away from lousy surroundings, they cannot communicate the disease, and it will speedily die out. This explains why the cases of typhus that occurred in New York City in 1911 did not cause an epidemic in spite of the verminous condition of many of the New York slum districts. Nevertheless, greater personal cleanliness should, as a matter of ordinary decency and healthfulness, be required from immigrants; and no return should be allowed to the conditions that prevailed for many years before the war, when very many immigrants from central Europe arrived in an inexcusably dirty condition, many of them infected with vermin. Even though, in those days, they did not bring epidemic diseases, they did bring many minor afflictions, created disease centers and flooded parts of many cities with vermin. At present, with the reduction in immigration brought about by the existing law restricting their numbers and with the disinfecting and delousing facilities that the steamship companies have installed, some of them practically under compulsion, at European ports, conditions are reasonably satisfactory. The respite is, however, not for long, for the restrictive law is for one year only, and unless it is renewed or in some way replaced the tidal wave of immigrants, now waiting in Europe for the letting down of the bars, will rush for this country, and the resulting pressure will test every timber in the health barricade. It is believed that the steamship companies have taken warning by their experience of last winter and spring, and will keep in operation adequate facilities for bathing and disinfecting their prospective passengers. The Public Health Service cannot directly compel them to do this; nor can it do it itself, for some European countries object, on the ground that, in setting up the necessary facilities, the U. S. Government would be exercising extra-territorial powers and thereby encroaching on their sovereignty. Under these circumstances, all the Service can do is to repeat its action of last spring by requesting the State Department to instruct its consuls in Europe to refuse a bill of health to vessels sailing without adequate cleansing measures, and by instructing its own quarantine officers to delouse immigrants on arrival here, and to detain them, in case of suspicion, for 12 days thereafter. It was this action alone that caused some steamship companies to go to the expense of installing disinfecting plants abroad. Failure to delouse properly on the other side enormously increases the trouble and expense on this side. The necessity of holding a shipload of immigrants for 12 days, after delousing, is in every way objectionable, both to the Government, the steamship owners, and the immigrants. But it seems to be the only available means that will remain for protecting the country against vermin carriers and disease carriers, if the bars are let down and the flood becomes great enough to swamp the cleansing facilities at foreign and home ports. MORTALITY SUMMARY FOR THE WEEK ENDING JANUARY 14, 1922. There were 1,481 deaths reported during the week just closed with a death rate of 13.23 as compared with 1,396 deaths and a rate of 12.66 (1921), an increase in the absolute number of deaths of 85 and in the death rate of .57 of a point, this latter being equivalent to a relative increase of 64 deaths. This pronounced increase in the mortality rate for the week was due not to any increase in the infectious or contagious diseases of childhood but to an increase in the mortality from organic heart diseases, Bright's disease and nephritis, cancer, pulmonary tuberculosis and lobar pneumonia, diseases affecting chiefly adults and old persons. The total number of deaths from infectious diseases was 45 as compared with 52 in the corresponding week of 1921, a decrease of 7 deaths. Diarrhoeal diseases under five years of age were responsible for 12 deaths as compared with 25, a decrease of 13. There were 308 deaths reported from organic heart diseases as compared with 284, an increase of 24, and 103 deaths from Bright's disease and nephritis as compared with 93, an increase of 10. There were 149 deaths attributed to lobar pneumonia as compared with 118, an increase of 31 deaths. Acute bronchitis and broncho pneumonia totaled 120 deaths as compared with 95 deaths, an increase of 25 deaths from these two causes, this increase occurring chiefly among children. Pulmonary tuberculosis killed 117 persons as compared with 101, an increase of 16; on the other hand only 12 deaths were reported from other forms of tuberculosis as compared with 31, a decrease of 19 deaths. Viewed from the point of age grouping there were 196 deaths reported of infants under one year of age as compared with 183, an increase of 13 deaths. Between one and five years of age there were 102 deaths reported as compared with 97, an increase of 5. Between five and sixty-five years of age there were 793 deaths reported as compared with 790, an increase of 3. At ages over sixtyfive there were 390 deaths reported as compared with 326, an increase of 64 deaths making a total increase of 85 deaths at all ages. The death rate for the first two weeks of the year was 13.25 per 1,000 of the population as compared with a rate of 13.01 in the corresponding weeks of 1921, an increase of .24 of a point. Seventy-nine infants under one year of age died out of every 1,000 born during the first two weeks of the year as compared with 72 deaths out of every 1,000 births in the corresponding period of 1921, an increase of 7 deaths per 1,000 children born. PUBLIC HEALTH DIVISION of the MUNICIPAL REFERENCE LIBRARY 3rd Floor, 505 Pearl Street Open to the general public for reference use. Material will be loaned to persons on the payroll of the City. ANTHRAX. Smyth, H. F. Disinfecting skins and hair for anthrax. (Am. J. Hyg., Sept.-Nov., 1921. pp. 541-546.) BATHS.-Gage, C. DeM., and A. E. Griffin. Sanitation of bath-houses or public bathing schools. (Am. J. Pub. Health, Dec., 1921. pp. 1080-1085, tables.) DIPHTHERIA.-Kilduffe, R. A. The Schick FIRST AID.-Hubbard, S. D. First aid; med- INSURANCE HEALTH.-Hartshorn, W. E. cut viewpoint. (Med. Rec., Jan. 7, 1922. TYPHOID FEVER.-Hamer, W. H. A bird's chart.) VITAL STATISTICS-CITY OF NEW YORK Deaths, and Annual Death Rate Per 1,000; Deaths According to Certain Causes and Ages; Deaths and Death Rate Under One Year Per 1,000 Births For Thirteen Weeks Oct. Oct. Nov. Nov. Nov. Nov. Dec. Dec. Dec. Dec. Dec. Jan. Jan. Total deaths 22 29 1211 1177 5 12 19 26 3 10 17 24 31 7 14 1181 1123 1229 1184 1153 1201 1246 1332 1364 1486 1481 Annual Death Rate 10.98 10 68 10 71 10.19 11.15 10.74 10.46 10.89 11.30 12.08 12.37 13.28 13.23 "Acute Infectious Diseases" include Typhoid Fever, Scarlet Fever, Measles, Diphtheria, Whooping Cough, Smallpox and Cerebro-spinal Meningitis. Does not include suicides. Mortality Summary for the Week Ending Saturday Noon, January 14, 1922. Corrected by redistributing deaths according to borough of residence. During the first two weeks of this year there were 2,967 deaths, a rate of 13.25 per 1,000 population. During the corresponding weeks of last year there were 2,870 deaths, a rate of 13.01 per 1,000 population. Deaths by Principal Causes; and Ages During the first two weeks of this year 406 infants died, a rate of 79. per 1,000 births. During the corresponding weeks of last year 367 died, a rate of 72. per 1,000 births. Infectious Diseases in the Department of Health Hospitals tIf the deaths under one month numbering 92 from all causes, be deducted from the total deaths under one year, the resulting rate will be 40 per 1,000 births (weekly average). *Includes deaths from Erysipelas 9, Syphilis 8, Diabetes, 30, Alcoholism 4, Locomotor Ataxia 3, Paresis 10, Arterio-sclerosis 55, all other congenital causes 13. |