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> Breathitt's total assessed valuation dropped from $7,205,920 in 1931-32 to $5,052,607 in 1938-39. County revenue this year is down to $48,790 (of which the Louisville & Nashville Railway will pay a third). There are 200 telephones in the county; County Judge Pearl Campbell has no telephone in his office.
> "People just don't have money for hospital service"—so Breathitt's only hospital is closing. The hospital doctor is going away, leaving only two physicians and young, overworked County Health Officer Frank K. Sewell to cope with the trachoma (eye inflammation), syphilis, gonorrhea in Breathitt's remote mountain shacks. To get to Morris Fork for a clinic once every six weeks, Dr. Sewell has to ride mule-back or walk the last five miles across two mountains.
> Of 625 live births recorded last year, only three occurred in a hospital; mountain midwives delivered 531. Breathitt's birth rate of 28.92 per 1,000 population is well above Kentucky's, but the death rate is lower (9.07, to 9.88 for the State).
Reason: "... a great many deaths are not reported."
> Of those who die in Breathitt County, 56% get no treatment by physicians. Perhaps one out of ten is buried by an undertaker.