[lit-ideas] Re: remebering 1906
- From: Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2007 21:06:48 -0800
I would imagine too that most people could recognize the major
diseases of the time (consumption, flu, diarrhea, heart attack and
stroke), if in fact those were the major diseases.
I think that many people, but not 'most,' could. Yet this alone would
not support any statistics on the causes of death in the early part of
the last century. In order to be quantified, causes of death have to
be reported, and after they are reported, tallied. Deaths (and perhaps
their causes, if known) would, in the US, first be reported at the
county level (if there was a mechanism for this), summarized at the
state level, and finally, at the Federal level. I'm not sure how this
last was achieved; I'm sceptical, like Hume (not skeptical), about the
reliability of such a final compilation, given the unreliability of
gathering and transmitting information of this kind in the days before
the wheel.
I did think it odd that such ill-trained and inept doctors could
reliably report on causes of death; doctors are even now given to
sketchy descriptions on death certificates; 'causes related to age,'
was a common one not that long ago. So, I'm questioning the doctor
(coroner)-death certificate and the local-federal links in this
information chain.
Boil your Jello.
Robert Paul
Reed College
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