A manual for health officers / by J. Scott MacNutt ... with a foreword by William T. Sedgwick.

  • MacNutt, J. Scott (Joseph Scott), 1885-
Date:
1915
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A manual for health officers / by J. Scott MacNutt ... with a foreword by William T. Sedgwick. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    18. Birth (completion of birth) is the instant of complete separation of the entire body (not body in the restricted sense of trunk, but the entire organism, including head, trunk and limbs) of the child from the body of the mother. The umbilical cord need not be cut or the placenta detached in order to constitute complete birth for registration purposes. A child dead or dying'a moment before the instant of birth is a stillbirth, and one dying a moment, no matter how brief, after birth, was a living child, and should not be registered as a stillbirth. [In the latter case both a birth certificate and a death certificate should be filed.] 19. No child that shows any evidence of life after birth should be registered as a stillbirth. 20. Stillbirths should not be included in tables of births or in tables of deaths. They should be given in'separate tables of stillbirths. 21. It is not desirable that mid wives be allowed to sign certificates of stillbirths. STATISTICAL DEFINITION OF BIRTHS 22. Total births should include children born alive only, and headings of tables should state that stillbirths are excluded. 23. Whenever, under the foregoing rules a death should be registered, there should be a corresponding registration at some previous time of a birth; and whenever a stillbirth is registered it should be rigorously excluded from both the statistics of births and deaths. ESSENTIAL REQUIREMENTS FOR THE REGISTRATION OF DEATHS 24. The deaths must be recorded immediately after their occurrence. Note. — In statistical practice the terms record and recording should be used in the limited sense of receiving and filing, while the term register and registration should be used as embracing the further idea of inclusion of the records in the statistics of the area. 25. Certificates of death of standard form should be used. 26. Burial or removal permits are essential to the enforcement of the law. 27. Efficient local registrars are necessary. 28. The responsibility for reporting deaths to the local registrar should be placed upon the undertaker or other person having charge of the disposition of the body. 29. The central registration office should have full control of the local machinery, and its rules should have the effect of law. 30. The transmission and preservation of returns should be provided for. 31. Penalties should be provided and enforced. [Additional rules regarding deaths adopted in 1910 (see below).]