al pros- rrostatic recessity :ase or of acid >rostatic I n 1 1 ith an d highest )e Prac- nal acid arr and rts with ;phatase. ,y in th e demon- 'ation in rchyper- disease, is of car- le on th e rne. Sev- e an ele- ing carci- ly hemo- ty of up rnassage e benign 's disease 'his goes ; are hu - Phosphatase ::790 (octo- l Determina' :ing Skeleta! s Disease ot i I I j Although registrationhas been approximately complete only in recent years,nearly a million recordsare now on file, some of them dating back over ahundredyears. The oldest marriage ecords were filed in L84I; the oldest death records n 1853;a nd he oldestbirthrecordsn 1853. A local registrar n eachcounty s responsible for supervising he registration system Tvithin his arcaand or collecting and forwarding certificates to the Bureauof Health Statistics.n the counties of Hawaii, Kauai and Maui, the county health officeractsas he local registrar; n Honolulu, the local registrar s a full-time employeewithin th e Bureau of HealthStatistics. Beginning in l9AL, government physicians servedas ocal registrars.n 1950,a change was made to county health officersand the Bureauof Health Statistics' employee on Oahu, therebyre- ducing the numberof registrars rom 35 to four. Since he centraloffice can deal more easily with four officials than rvith a l arger number, this re- duction greatly simplified administrationof the system. With present-dayommunicationacilities, the reduction in number of registrarsdoes not inconvenience he public. Th e Health Department, hrough heBureauof Health Statistics, also maintains agents n each county who issuemariage licenseso applicants meeting t he necessary egal requirement s.trith the exception f one civil service mployeewithin the Bureau, he agentsare appointed by the Presi- dentof the Boardof Health.There ar e 28 of them distributed hroughout he Territory. The Usesof Vital Records In addition to supplyingcertified nformation to individuals and families for personaluse, he Bureauof Health Statistics lsouses vital records to assistotheragencies.or example, he Federal Bureau of Investigation nd he Bureauof Internal Revenue ometimes eceive assistancensearching for addresses nd other information needed o locate ndividuals;title searching gencies re as- sistedby tracing genealogies; pon request, wel- f.are agencies and the juvenile courts receive verifications of age; immigration officialsobtain information regarding citizenship; newspaperset lists of current births, deathsand marriages or their columns; periodically, countyclerksare fur- nished notices of deceased ersons twenty-one years of age and overfor purging voter lists; and, foreign consulateset noticeof the deat hs of their nationals. 1l VITAL RECORDS N HAWAII CHARLES G. BENNETT, M.A.,* eNo GEORGETOKUYAMA, B.A.,t Honolulu tllt HE BUREAU of Health Statistic s f the Ter- lL ritorial Health Department s responsibleor r- rlrorlal ,uealtn uepartment ts responslble tor maintaining a registration system or the collection of birth, death, fetal re death, marriageand i- vorce ecordshrough- out the Territory. Th e Bureau preserves hese records n permanent form a n d furnishes certif ed inf orma- tion from them t o thosewho need t for proving personal propertyrights. In rnostcountries f the world the registra- tion of vital events and the preservation f docu- mentationconcerninghemare unctions of a gov- ernment agency pecializing n that field. In every state and territory of the United Statesexcept Massachusetts, hese unctionsbelong o the health department,owing to its need for vital statistics in public health and medical work. The reasoning is that public health agencies ave the greatest stake n reliablevital statistics nd, therefore, will do the bestand most economical ob in registra- tion to get them. n other words,good registration is necessaryor good vital statistics. A certificate of every birth, maniage, divorce and deathoccurring n the Territory isfiled in the Bureauof HealthStatistics.n the course f time, on e or morecopies of a certificate ertaining o an individual may be requiredby him or his family. The Bureau no w receives more than 40,000 re- quests nnually or documentarynformationfrom vital records. The Registration System The registration of vital events n the Territory is a far-flung process nvolving several housand peopleeveryyear.They includeregistrars, hysi- cians,midwives, undertakers, ersonnelof hospi- tals, marriage icenseagents,ministers,and court clerks, aswell as he ndividualsand heir families to whom the events ertain. In L954, the Bureau egistered 6,1p1births, 2,95, deaths,79 3 fetal deaths,5,362marriages and L,27O ivorces r annulments. * Chief of the Bureau of Health Statistics, Department of Health. t Chief of the Registration and Records Section of th e sane Bureau. Received or publication July J, 195J. VOL. 15, No. 2 - NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 9 5 5 OURNAL 1 2 7
