CONTENTS. Membership and Officers of the State Board of Health... General Report of the Board,.... Abstract of Minutes and Transactions. Report of Executive and Finance Committee.. Report of Committee on Registration and Vital Statistics.... Records and Investigations of Prevalent Diseases..... PAGE. Report of Standing Committee on Public Institutions. ... Report upon School Hygiene, by Dr. D. F. Lincoln ..... Report of Committee on Drainage, Sewerage and Topography, 281-320 Report on Methods of Sewerage for Cities and large Villages, Prof. Chandler's Report on Results of work of the Analysts.. 501-509 Prof. Caldwell's Report on Butter, Cheese and Fruit Essences, 509-547 on gelatine and Sugar-Coated Pills.. 688-691 Prof. Chester's Report on Canned Meats, Animal Foods, etc., 548-558 Dr. Englehardt's Report on Wines, Beers, etc.... Dr. Hoffmann's Report on Crude Vegetable and Animal Drugs; 619-678 and Pharmaceutical Chemicals and their Preparations..... 679-688 709-718 State Board of Health of New York. SECOND ANNUAL REPORT. To Hon. ALONZO B. CORNELL, Governor of New York: SIR-In the report submitted a year ago this Board presented outlines of the several branches of sanitary work it had organized during the first half year of its service. The report now presented will show what progress has been made in the work during the year ending December 1, 1881. The first duties which the laws have imposed upon the State Board of Health require that in taking cognizance of the interests of health and life among the people of the State, it shall make inquiries in respect to the causes of disease, especially of epidemics, and investigate the sources of mortality. The obligations of the Board to obtain, preserve and use such information, and by all suitable means to aid the people in their local sanitary organization and duties, have become generally well understood throughout the State. The town and village authorities have been steadily organizing and perfecting the local health boards, and availing themselves of the provisions of recent laws, they freely seek whatever information and assistance the State Board can give. In this respect the constituted local authorities of towns and villages are evincing their worthiness of the trust which successive Legislatures repose in them. The organized townships and cities being the units of which the State is composed there is abundant reason for testing the willingness and ability of local sanitary authorities to perform the duties now required at their hands under the existing laws relating to the public health and vital registration. Without hesitation the State Board of Health has thus far endeavored to take all possible advantage of these laws in their obvious meaning, and of the best provisions of the local government organizations as found at the time available in the towns, cities and villages, for giving practical effect to these laws, so far as this Board may participate in or usefully influence the administration and execution of them. In this report the action taken by the Board during the year, the information obtained by it, the vital statistics and the sanitary condition and prospects of the State will be concisely presented under the following heads; and for the purpose of completing the information which should herewith be submitted, classified statements and special reports are hereto appended as a body of evidence in which the connected points of review and suggestions, as here submitted by the Board. will be fully sustained: I. Prevalent Diseases.-Small-pox, Diphtheria, Scarlet Fever, Typhus and Typhoid Fevers. II. Distribution and Local Government of the Population.- Local Boards of Health. III. The New Sanitary Laws.- Chapters 407 and 431 of 1881. V. Investigation and Prevention of Stench Nuisances. VI. Procedures under the eighth section of the State Board of Health Act. VII. Laws and Sanitary Provisions relating to Small-pox and Vaccination. VIII. Impure Water Supplies. Pollution of Wells and Streams.— Water Analysis. IX. The General Drainage Laws. X. Sanitary Drainage of Villages, and the Treatment of Drainage areas in populous districts.- Disposal of Domestic Waste Matters. XI. Public obstructions to Natural Drainage. Sanitary questions connected with the Abandoned Canals, and the Malarial Grounds near the Erie canal. XII. The extent of Preventable Causes of Malaria in the State. XIV. The State System of Registration of Births, Deaths and Marriages. XV. Expert Services. XVI. Health in the Schools. XVII. Tenements.- Protection of Health and Life of Tenants. I. PREVALENT DISEASES. Healthful and prosperous as the past year has been in the State of New York, those acute contagions which are the enemies of child-life, have prevailed in a great many localities, and, as usual, have desolated thousands of homes. Scarlet fever, diphtheria, small-pox, the most. conspicuous of these enemies, have not limited their prevalence to the crowded cities, and the poorer classes in villages; but they have been especially malignant and fatal in rural neighborhoods, and even in the remotest districts. As the year is now closing, diphtheria and smallpox are being reported as in progress in remote hill districts where sanitary safe-guards against such evils have been least thought of hitherto. The more we know of the places and habits of these contagious maladies the more conclusive is the evidence that whatever may |