'320 HEALTH. [ART. 43

tricts, cities or villages to investigate the cause of any existing
disease, and shall, from time to time, and whenever directed by
the Governor or Legislature, make special inspections of public
hospitals, asylums, prisons, and other institutions, and shall, at
, each session of the Legislature, submit, through the board,
a full report of his investigations, with such suggestions and
recommendations as he may deem proper; he shall, when
required by the Governor or other proper authorities, advise in
regard to the location, drainage, water supply, disposal of excre-
ment, heating and ventilation of any public institution or build-
ing belonging to the State; he shall collect information concern-
ing vital statistics, prevailing diseases and the general hygiene of
the State, and through an annual report and otherwise, as the
board may direct, shall disseminate such information among the
people; he shall receive from the treasury, in monthly payments,
an annual salary of three thousand dollars, to be paid on the
warrant of the comptroller, out of any money in the treasury
not otherwise appropriated.

1898, ch. 812.

6. The secretary of the State board of health shall be the
State Registrar of Vital Statistics for Maryland; he shall, under
the direction of the State board of health, prepare the neces-
sary methods, books and forms for accurate registration of
births and deaths, and shall supply the local registrars, health
officers, ministers, physicians, undertakers, mid-wives and other
persons charged with any duty under this act, the proper blanks,
forms and books of record. The State Registrar shall collect,
tabulate and preserve the records of the vital statistics of the
State. Annually, in the month of January, he shall prepare a
general abstract and report of the vital statistics for the preceding
year, so tabulated and arranged as to render them of practical
utility, and shall have printed not more than one thousand copies,
of which he shall forward five copies each to the Governor and
the State Librarian, one to each member of the General Assem-
bly of Maryland, one to each local Registrar of Vital Statistics,
one to the board of health of each State and Territory of the
United States, and the remainder to such departments, libraries
and persons as may seem to the State Registrar entitled to the
same.