| 2 | --
Varicella | 160 | 198 | 123 | 98 | 199 | 169
Typhoid fever | 62 | 35 | 42 | 37 | 55 | 36
Whooping cough | 12 | 19 | 3 | 25 | 24 | 14
Cerebro-spinal | | | | | |
meningitis | 13 | 7 | 6 | 11 | 16 | 13
-----------------+------+------+------+------+------+------
Total | 1844 | 1888 | 1603 | 1882 | 2351 | 2428
=================+======+======+======+======+======+======

In cities where physicians are not compelled to notify the health board
of danger centers,--that is, of patients sick from measles, smallpox,
or diphtheria,--and in smaller communities where notices are sent only
to state boards of health, parents will find it difficult to take a
keen interest in vital statistics. But if teachers would start at the
beginning of the year to record in such a table the days of absence
from school because of transmissible disease, both they and their
pupils would discover a new interest in efficient health
administration. After a national board of health is organized we may
reasonably expect that either state boards of education or state boards
of health will regularly supply teachers with reports that will lead
them to compare the vitality photographs of their own schools and
communities with the vitality photographs of other schools and other
communities working under similar conditions. Then children old enough
to study physiology and hygiene will be made to see the
happiness-giving possibilities of vitality tests and vital statistics.

[Illustration: VITAL STATISTICS CAN MAKE DISEASE CENTERS AS
OBVIOUS AND AS OFFENSIVE AS THE SMOKE NUISANCE]

Instead of discussing the theory of vital statistics, or the extent to
which statistics are now satisfactory, it would be better for us at
this point to make clear the significance of the movement for a
national fact center for matters pertaining to personal, industrial,
and community vitality. Five economic reasons are assigned for
establishing a national department of health:

1. To enable society to increase the percentage of exceptional men
of each degree, many of whom are now lost through preventable
accidents, and also to increase the total population.

2. To lessen the burden of unproductive years by increasing the
average age at death.

3. To decrease the burden of death on the productive years by
increasing the age at death.

4. To le