Annual Report

SIR The State Board of Health presents, in its third annual report, a brief statement of its transactions, and an account of the work performed under its supervision and of the progress in organization and service of local sanitary authorities.

The law under which this Board was created specified certain duties of first importance, in the nature of sanitary inquiry and advice, and of coöperation with local authorities, the exchange of information with, and giving of aid to them, and the acquirement of information and the registry of records relating to health, diseases and mortality. These duties have continued to receive attention, while under the several laws which the Legislature has since enacted for the preservation of the public health various additional requirements have been laid upon this Board. These duties are very clearly defined and guarded in the several laws by which they are imposed, and they alike emphasize the spirit and purposes of the organic act of 1880 that has shaped the work thus far undertaken.

As shown in the first and second annual reports, this Board has, from the first, regarded the successful local sanitary service by boards of health in towns, villages and cities as the most essential step toward any general and permanent sanitary improvement and well-regulated public health service. For this reason the amendment and harmonizing of the general law for the preservation of the public health, as completed by the Legislature in 1881 and 1882, is regarded as giving a good foundation for a correct and popular system of local sanitary government throughout the State. Under this amended general law every town and city must have a local board of health; and every incorporated village is likewise authorized to have its local board, under conditions that shall keep it free from incompetent interferences; and, when a village board of health is so organized and acting, the town and village expenses for the public health service become entirely distinct, and the two boards are incited to an efficient and economical administration of their clearly-defined duties within their respective jurisdictions.

To the local boards of health, under the amended laws, has been transferred the responsibility and authority for enforcing complete registration of vital statistics, under the supervision of the State Board. This became necessary in view of the indispensable importance of con

stant sanitary watchfulness over the causes and circumstances of mortality, the adoption of protective measures against infectious diseases, the sanitary regulation of burials and the transit of remains of the dead by public carriers. The immediate registry of births is regarded as a sanitary duty. The records of marriages could not, under existing statutes, be conveniently separated from other branches of vital statistics. The local registry clerk has other relations to the local government, and, therefore, does not increase the usual list of local officials. In all respects the general statute for the preservation of the public health, as now administered by local boards, with advice and coöperation given by the State Board, is proving to be a beneficent, acceptable and economical basis of local sanitary government. The organization and maintenance of the local boards of health and their systematic service enables every community to acquire and apply the most essential kinds of sanitary knowledge and the means for protecting and improving the public health; while through the agency of these boards and the enlightened interest which they awaken, each and all of the communities in the Commonwealth may now derive benefit from the State Board of Health. This is being daily exemplified in the Board's service. Its greatest benefits are most widely extended at the least cost and with only a minimum of interference, and yet with any necessary support of local action when required. The apprehensions expressed by many worthy citizens, at first, that the State Board was not endowed with adequate authority in the great work confided to it, are now believed to be groundless, especially as the executive orders of Governor, based upon the investigations and conclusions of this Board, are faithfully complied with. Examples of the practical operation of this feature of the organic law in this service are given in a subsequent section of this report.

Certain new duties which have devolved upon the Board under the Act for Preventing the Adulteration of Food and Drugs (chapter 407 of the Laws of 1881), and under the Act for Regulating the Safetystandard and Testing of Illuminating Oils (chapter 292 of the Laws of 1882), are described and also illustrated in numerous chapters by expert chemists in the appendix of this report. It is due to the public as well as to this Board to state, in this place, that all the procedures and a great amount of scientific investigation, pursued in obedience to these two new laws, have been ordered and pursued with all the prudence, justice and conscientiousness possible, and as regards the expenditures upon these added duties the business accounts of the Board are so kept that the cash expenses upon each of them are separately exhibited in the monthly and the annual statements by the finance committee and in the office accounts.

SUBDIVISIONS OF THIS REPORT.

The Public Health and Prevalent Diseases in the State during the past year.

Vital Statistics of the State.

The Local Boards of Health and the Practical Operation of the Amended Sanitary Laws relating to them.

Work of the Board on Appeals from Citizens and Local Boards, and as required in the cases referred to the Board by the Governor,

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Annual Report, 3권