1893-1894 - The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

82 NORTH CAEOLIXA BOAKD OF HEALTH.
VITAL STATISTICS.
While we have made distinct progress in the past year
in this branch of our work we are still veiy far from
where we ought to be. It is of course manifestly impossible
to obtain accurate statistics from the country districts,
and so our efforts have been directed to the tow^ns and
cities. "We have now twenty-nine towns reporting, as
against twenty -five a year ago, Morehead City having discontinued
its reports and Lenoir, Pittsboro, Warrenton,
Washington and Winston having been added to the list.
The total population represented is 144,934, of whom 85,750
are white and 59,204 are colored.
The annual death-rate
for the former is 12.4 and for the latter 21.7 per thousand.
The deaths from consumption were among the whites 115
or 1.33 per thousand, while among the negroes they were
184 or 3.11 per thousand. These figures, while we cannot
sa}' they are absolutely reliable in every instance, are so in
the main and are both interesting and instructive as showing
the difference in mortality in the two races, particularly
the great increase of consumption in the colored
people, among whom it was in the days of slavery almost
an unknown quantity, and as illustrating in a strikingmanner
the effects of comparatively sanitary and very
unsanitary conditions.
This question of reliable mortuary statistics is an
unusually important one to a State which, like ours, is
seeking to attract immigrants of intelligence and character.
The health ai-gumeut is one of our very strongest, but it
will have very little weight with the class we have in view
unless we can support that argument with facts that cannot
be controverted. We have tlie facts ; let us collect them in
such a way as to put them above suspicion. To assure
reliable statistics from our principal towns and cities a