Aside from possible difficulty in securing beds in the hospitals, there is another cause for the scanty number of Negro hospital cases. The Negro not only because of his ignorance, but perhaps even more because of his inclinations to voodooism and superstition, feels an aversion to the hospital, where he thinks the knife and the “black bottle” are frequently used. He is still child-like in many ways, and will prefer all sorts of patent medicines and quack doctors rather than expose himself to the surgeon’s knife in a hospital; and chooses to stay at home among his own people where he may “die in peace.” _TABLE NUMBER XXIII_ _Comparative Record of the Births and Deaths of Negroes and the Entire City Population, during the Year of 1915 and the First Seven Months of 1917._ NEGRO ENTIRE CITY 1915 1915 BIRTHS ███████████ 565 BIRTHS ████████████████ 16,139 DEATHS ██████████ 536 DEATHS █████████ 8,722 FIRST SEVEN MONTHS 1917 FIRST SEVEN MONTHS 1917 BIRTHS ███████ 356 BIRTHS ███████████ 11,013 DEATHS ██████████ 527 DEATHS ████████ 7,657 There is no more striking phase of the local Negro problem, than that shown in table number XXIII. These figures disclose the astonishing fact that the death rate among Negroes in this city during the first seven months of 1917, was forty-eight percent greater than the birth rate. In other words, while in the city population as a whole, the number of deaths was thirty percent less than the number of births, the number of deaths among colored people was forty-eight percent more than the number of births; thus, for every one hundred persons born in Pittsburgh in 1917, there were seventy deaths, while among the colored population, for every one hundred children born, one hundred and forty-eight persons died. These figures seem of sinister significance to the Negro race. Even when taking into consideration the facts that the migration is largely that of single males, rather than that of families, and that because most of the women here are doing some work outside the home there is a definite policy of limiting their birth rate, there still remains the fact that even during the entire year of 1915, while the birth rate of the entire city population was practically twice the death rate, the excess number of births over deaths among colored people was only twenty-nine in a total of over five hundred. _TABLE NUMBER XXIV_ _Ages of Persons who Died Within the First Seven Months of 1917._ +---------------+------+ | Under 1 year | 87 | | Under 5 years | 43 | | From 5 to 12 | 16 | | From 12 to 20 | 24 | | From 20 to 30 | 69 | | From 30 to 40 | 101 | | From 40 to 60 | 138 | | Over 60 | 49 | | ----- | --- | | TOTAL | 527 | +---------------+------+ _TABLE NUMBER XXV_ _Causes of Deaths of Children Under 5 Years of Age._