s often qualified or perverted, it
follows that dependent data, such as the assigned causes of death, as
required by law, are still more unreliable; so I shall keep as far away
from statistics as possible except where some specific condition can be
shown by approved figures or by figures so inherently self-disproved
that they carry their own refutation.

_The Criminal Negligence of Physicians_

This unreliability may be set down to the account of the medical
profession. Realizing though they do the danger of concealment from the
proper authorities, and in the face of the law which, as it gives them
special privileges, requires of them a certain return, a considerable
percentage of physicians falsify the returns to protect the
sensibilities of their patrons. That they owe protection rather to the
lives of the public, they never stop to think. Tuberculosis is the
disease most misreported. In many communities it is regarded as a
disgrace to die of consumption. So it is. But the stigma rests upon the
community which permits the ravage of this preventable disease; not upon
the victims of it, except as they contribute to the general lethargy. In
order to save the feelings of the family, a death from consumption is
reported as bronchitis or pneumonia. The man is buried quietly. The
premises are not disinfected, as they should be, and perhaps some
unknowing victim moves into that germ-reeking atmosphere, as into a
pitfall. Let me give an instance. A clergyman in a New York city told me
of a death from consumption in his parish. The family had moved away,
and the following week a young married couple with a six-months-old baby
moved in.

"What can I do about it?" asked the clergyman. "Mr. Blank's death was
said to be from pneumonia; but that was only the final cause. He had
been consumptive for a year."

"Warn the new tenants," I suggested, "and have them ask the Health Board
to disinfect."

More than a year later I met the clergyman on a train and recalled the
case to him. "Yes," he said, "those people thought it was too much
trouble to disinfect, particularly since the reports did not give
tuberculosis as the cause of death. Now their child is dying of
tuberculosis of the intestines."

In this case, had the death been properly reported by the dead man's
physician, as the law required, the City Board would have compelled
disinfection of the house before the new tenants were allowed to move
in. The physician who obligi