(Physicians will confer a favor by sending for THIS DEPARTMENT items of news of more or less general interest: such as relate to society activities, new hospitals, education, public health, etc.)
ALABAMA
Health at Birmingham.
—Telegraphic reports to the U. S. Department of Commerce from sixty-one cities with a total population of about 29 million, for the week ending July 6, indicate that the highest mortality rate (17.9) was for Birmingham, and that the mortality rate for the group of cities as a whole was 10.2. The mortality rate for Birmingham for the corresponding weeks last year was 20 and for the group of cities, 11.7. The annual mortality rate for the sixty-one cities for the twenty-seven weeks of 1929 was 14.3, as compared with the rate of 13.8 for the corresponding weeks of last year. Caution should be used in the interpretation of weekly figures, as they