BULLETIN OF THE VERMONT STATE BOARD OF HEALTH. Volume VII. No. 2. Issued Quarterly at Brattleboro, Vermont. The Bulletin is published quarterly by the State Board of Health under the authority of Section 5 of Act No. 90, Legislature of 1900. It will be sent to all Boards of Health. A copy will be sent to any person in the state upon request addressed to the Secretary, Henry D. Holton, Brattleboro. NEWS ITEMS. A National Department of Health. The government is designed for the welfare of the people, and in a government like ours, of the whole people, one of the first considerations in the people's welfare is their health; material resources are secondary. Without an able-bodied race, no country can prosper, and it is the favoring health conditions of the temperate zones that have made the races inhabiting them the rulers of the world. With the artificial conditions of civilization, however, the problem of the public health comes more and more to the front, and the old laissez faire methods show their deficiencies. More than one country at the present time is seeking methods and means to check the degenerative tendencies that threaten them, and the question whether our civilization is to last seems largely to depend on the success of these efforts. Casualties of the Fourth. The self-imposed annual task of one of our most prominent medical journals, that of compiling statistics of the casualty list depending directly or indirectly upon Fourth of July celebrations, has been published for 1905, and its findings furnish matter for grave reflection for physicians indeed, for all interested in the general welfare. The list that has been compiled must necessarily be incomplete, particularly as far as trivial and non-fatal injuries are concerned, but offers material for comparison with previous years, having been gleaned from the same sources. The total number of cases of tetanus for 1905 was 104, which, added to 95 deaths from other causes, gives a total of 199, while the non-fatal injuries number 5,994. The great cause we have for congratulation is that the num ber of cases of lockjaw have been greatly lessened since 1903, when 415 died from this one cause alone. This is due, undoubtedly, to the fact that blank cartridge wounds have also been greatly lessened, 1,672 for 1903 as against 809 for this year. As wounds of this character have contributed by far the largest number of cases of lockjaw, their decrease can account for the comparatively few instances of this grave malady. After the slaughter of 1903 the medical and lay press joined forces in a crusade that had for its object the lessening of the great casualty list, and particularly of the deaths from lockjaw. The nature of the disease was explained, the peculiar anaërobic characteristics of its causative agent, the excessive danger of the closed wound, so frequent an accompaniment of the blank cartridge, the value of anti-tetanic seruni, and particularly of prophylactic injections of the same in suspected cases. By this concerted action of the press ordinances were enacted in the large cities and enforced, prohibiting the sale of the toy pistol. The beneficent results obtained in 1904 were widely heralded, but the press, satisfied with what had been done and intent upon more worlds to conquer, lost interest, failed to remind the public of the perils in store, and the harvest of 1905 was fully as great as that of the previous year. It is clear, then, that to expect a progressive lessening of mortality from Independence Day folly, we must keep continually before the public the danger to which they are subjecting themselves by their idiotic display of so-called patriotism. This can only be done by the aid of the public press, and the distaste which the average physician has for newspaper notoriety should give way to this call of humanity. There are thousands of newspapers throughout this great country eagerly scanned by their constituents. If for several weeks previous to the annual celebration letters from prominent physicians in the communities in which they reside be published over their own signatures in their local papers, much good might be accomplished. The newspapers, recognizing the urgency and earnestness of the medical profession, would unquestionably take up the subject with renewed vigor. It is a thing which must be constantly kept in the public mind. Every year we have a new crop of youthful enthusiasts, and it is upon the youth of the land that the terrible scourge of tetanus is most likely to fall. Such a plan as has been suggested could hardly be regarded as unethical, considering our duty in its broadest sense as humanitarians. In comparison, at the battle of Bunker Hill, famous preliminary to the |