Jasper County Democrat, Volume 4, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 August 1901 — DEATH RETURNS IMPORTANT. [ARTICLE]

DEATH RETURNS IMPORTANT.

They Are Often in Demand in Lawsuits—A Recent Case, “It is surprising that people cannot be made to understand the importance of the death returns that are sent in from counties in all parts of Indiana to the State Board of Health.” said Capt. Anderson, clerk of the vital statistics department of the Health Board, in Indianapolis. “Scarcely a day passes that we do not receive requests for copies of these returns from people who wish to use them in lawsuits, in settling up estates or iu obtaining pensions. The death returns ought, of course, to be written legibly and iu ink, but we receive a great many that are so illegible that often we cannot decipher the name of the deceased. Only the other day we received a call for one of these certificates from a man who wanted to use it in settling up an estate in Germany belonging to a man that died in Indiana some time ago. I understand that in Germany they have death returns running back several hundred years. We in Indiana began to keep such a record as recently as October, 1899, less than two years ago. It seems to me we ought to start right aud have these certificates in perfect shape. “There is a rule of the State Board of Health that requires that no burial permit be issued for a corpse unless the death certificate shall have been made out in proper form and in ink writing, but this rule is often disregarded. I hope that the people who are interested in this matter —physicians, coroners, health officers and undertakers —will make up their minds to co-operate with the State Board of Health, to the end that a perfect set of death records may be kept, one that will be valuable for all time to come.”