Registration of births, deaths, and marriages : read at the semi-annual meeting of the society, June, 1852 / by Franklin Tuthill.

  • Tuthill, Franklin, 1822-1865.
Date:
1853
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Registration of births, deaths, and marriages : read at the semi-annual meeting of the society, June, 1852 / by Franklin Tuthill. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    The ancient Jews seem to have kept religiously their public registers, from the remotest times until the destruction of their nation by the Romans. From them were constructed the genea- logical tables of their sacred writings, reaching from Adam to the captivity of Judah. Through them, Josephus was able to trace his own descent from the tribe of Levi, and he assures us that his cotemporaries were careful, from the authentic documents pre- served at Jerusalem, to prepare and frequently renew their own family records. Divided into tribes as they wrere, with a speci- fied portion of the land of Canaan, for the inalienable possession of each, their titles to property depended very much on the accu- racy of these registers. But a still higher reason actuated the Jew. The sure voice of prophecy had announced the race, the tribe, the family of the expected Messiah. The registry system afforded an infallible test of the merits of the claimant, and the fact that whatever Jew shall hereafter pretend to the Messiahship must fail to establish his pedigree through the unregistered years sin?e the dispersion, is an irresistible argument that Shiloh has already come. Nearly 2,000 years ago, Marcus Aurelius ordered that parents should report the name and birth of each child before it had passed the thirtieth day of its existence ; and the learned Ulpi- anus required records of all who arrived at any of the great eras of life during the year. Similar records were kept at Athens, and the Athenians re- garded them as the only safe basis for calculating their future strength ; and before any enterprise was undertaken which might last through a series of years, they were consulted as the census of the future. Among moderns, England has taken the lead in full and mi- nute registration. Thomas Cromwell, while vicar-general of King Henry VIII. (A.D. 1538), ordered that «the clergy and every parson, vicar or curate should, for every church, keep one book of register, wherein they should write the day and year of every wedding, christening and burying within their parish, and therein set every person's name that shall be so wedded, christen- ed or buried. This same Henry supported the assidious and