§ 208. Extending the view from the private and public immediate and extraordinary necessities which may be met by a staff of well qualified public officers, exercising the duties and powers proposed, to the ordinary but higher public wants, it will be found they may in that position obtain in years, or even in months, indications of the certain means of prevention of disease, for which the medical experience of ages has supplied no means of cure, and only doubtful means of alleviation. § 209. There is not one medical man who has acted as a registrar of deaths who has been consulted on this subject, who does not state as a result of his short experience under the registration of the fact of deaths, and even of the distant and imperfect statements of the causes of death, that it has given them such a knowledge as no private practice could give of the effect of habits of life and of locality in producing disease. § 210. As a practical instance of the immediate advantages of placing the business of registration under the guidance of medical knowledge, may be cited the following from the statement of Mr. Jones, a medical officer, who acts as registrar of the Strand Union. Speaking of the working of the registration, he says— I find that neither my experience as a medical officer, for many years in the parish, nor my experience as a private practitioner, give me the same extended view of the causes of death as the mortuary registration. It brings to my knowledge cases which I could not know as a private practitioner: for example, as to the occurrence of small-pox or epidemics. In such instances, it is of use to me, as it sometimes enables me to go to places where I believe children have not been vaccinated, and suggest to the family the necessity of vaccination as a measure of prevention. When I have received information of one or two cases of small-pox, I have looked to the register of births, and sent to other people to warn them of the necessity of vaccination.