Some Essentials of Sickness Statistics [Discussion]

This is the first part of a chapter in a text-book which will prove a very valuable manual for students of casualty and social insurance. This part deals with the statistical description of sickness, or the collection, editing and tabulation of crude data as distinguished from the critical analysis of tabulated material. The paper in itself will be valuable not only for its own suggestions, but for copious references to the works of others. The writer seems to have taken two propositions as his text, one of which appears in the second paragraph of the paper, "We, in America, must insist upon an impartial thorough search for the facts of sickness if we would build a durable insurance and public health structure," and the other at the top of page 12% "The aim of sickness statistics should be the accurate extensive portrayal of sickness in its fourfold aspects."