GENERAL HEALTH LAWS AND LOCAL 
ORDINANCES, 
CONSIDERED WITH REFERENCE TO 
STATE AND LOCAL SANITARY ORGANIZATION. 
BY 
ELISHA HARRIS, M. D„ 
NEWYORK, 
REPRINTED PROM VOL. I. PUBLIC HEALTH PAPERS OF THE 
AMERICAN PUBLIC HEALTH ASSOCIATION. 
CAMBRIDGE: 
srintefc at tty 
1874. GENERAL HEALTH LAWS AND LOCAL ORDINANCES, CON- 
SIDERED WITH REFERENCE TO STATE AND LOCAL 
SANITARY ORGANIZATION. 
{Reprintedfrom Vol. I. Public Health Papers of the American Public Health Association.] 
ELISHA HARRIS, M. D., 
Of New York. 
The framing and administration of sanitary laws and regulations in the 
various states and municipalities of North America, should conform to the 
somewhat various and changing conditions of the areas and methods of the 
civil government. Cities and large villages thoughout this continent main- 
tain as strict independence as they possibly can in affairs of their local gov- 
ernment. This, and other circumstances may tend to delay the enactment 
of general laws or a general sanitary act in numerous States. But such 
general laws can readily be obtained in each State in which the friends of 
sanitary improvement cordially agree upon the points that should be at- 
tained, and upon the most economical and effectual methods of administra- 
tion, by which the desired results may be accomplished. 
A central source of information and of advisory, as well as ultimate 
authority, should be created and put into operation in connection with local 
authorities. Hence it is, that we witness now the working of the Boards of 
Health under general sanitary laws, as well as good local sanitary organiza- 
tion, in some of the newest of our States, as in Minnesota and California. 
New machinery of government may be more readily adjusted than old parts, 
recast, can be adjusted or harmoniously worked. Thus, in some respects, 
the friends of sanitary improvement in the newer States may be the first to 
succeed in their efforts. 
As the progress of sanitary improvement plainly requires that there shall 
be an effective system of State organization and a new and well regulated 
method of local sanitary administration, health laws, like the laws and 
regulations relating to the peace of communities or to the education of the 
people, the development of local improvements, or the protection of towns 
and districts against trespass and nuisance, are found by experience to be 
useful, acceptable, and well administered in proportion as the inhabitants of 4 
GENERAL HEALTH LAWS AND LOCAL ORDINANCES. 
the communities are intelligently concerned about the causes for which such 
laws and regulations have been called into existence. This is true, in gen- 
eral terms, in any country, and in the United States this truth is practically 
more important, and has fewer exceptions, than in most other countries. 
Sanitary cordons and the regulations of the government authorities of 
Europe, whenever confronting the march of cholera and-other pestilences, 
have proved unavailing except as particular communities conformed to and 
applied the sanitary regulations intelligently. And even now, when the 
diffusion of the cholera from India and Persia seems to be effectually ob- 
structed by the practical application of sanitary regulations in the Hadjez 
and along the routes traversed by the Mohammedan pilgrims, and also upon 
the frontiers of the Turkish and Russian dominions, the only real security 
against the onward march of this and other infectious pestilences lies in 
the intelligent support of the local and general health laws by municipal 
and State authorities who understand and can explain what are the reasons 
and uses of the regulations which they enforce. 
Previously to the diffusion of popular information concerning the com- 
mon principles and explanations of sanitary regulations in regard to the 
preventable causes of cholera, the enforcement of the regulations produced 
panic, frequently followed by brutal violence and scenes of terror, among 
inhabitants who utterly misunderstood the nature and purpose of the sani- 
tary measures intended for the repression of the pestilence. 
This lesson from experience may be useful when brought home to en- 
lightened communities in regard to any thorough and general application 
of the machinery of government and local authority for adopting and en- 
forcing regulations designed to protect the public health, and promote the 
sanitary welfare of towns and cities. It was of the ignorant and most 
needy sufferers from insalubrious conditions that John Simon, the chief 
medical officer of the Privy Council of England, spoke when he said, 
“. . . . beyond all measure hopeless is the wish that persons thus 
circumstanced should ever in other respects aspire to that atmosphere of 
civilization which has its essence in physical and moral cleanliness.” 
The wretched denizens of the very purlieus of pestilence in the slums of 
neglected cities and large towns ; the inhabitants of malarial districts ; 
households that are being wasted by phthisis; citizens while inhaling the 
poisonous emanations of foul sewers and cesspools, or suffering exposure 
to small-pox and typhus ; and entire communities drinking the water from 
defiled streams, or partaking of diseased meats and adulterated condiments, 
all alike would cry out against the invasion of their personal rights, if gen- 
eral laws or arbitrary local regulations were to be applied against the pleas- 
ure and conceits of the sufferers, to secure their sanitary welfare without 
their first understanding the necessity and reasonableness of the duty of 
such wholesome interference. Though it may be God-like to save, to res- 
cue, to overrule and compel the safe escape of human beings that would 
suffer and miserably perish without such interposition; though there be 
just pride in the manly prowess that rescues the drowning, the wrecked, 
and the helpless from the peril of impending death, and although there is GENERAL HEALTH LAWS AND LOCAL ORDINANCES. 
5 
a confessed sublimity in the uncompensated and faithful study and toil of 
devoted physicians as officers of health who by the application of their 
definite knowledge and skill arrest the progress and ravages of a pestilence, 
or prevent the operation of any great source of disease, these less frequent 
duties and acts of the “savers of men” must not be mistaken for the chief 
and constant functions of sanitary officers and health government; for 
they are savers of men and of great moral interests of society by prevent- 
ing the operation of causes which destroy life and health. 
All experience seems to warrant the conclusion that, in the United 
States, the permanent value and success of any methods or system of sanitary 
government will depend upon the degree in which the people are generally en- 
lightened, concerned, and made responsible, in regard to sanitary duties. 
With this fact clearly in mind, and a definite view of the practical effects 
of good laws and regulations as agencies for promoting a definite knowl- 
edge of obligations and securing a dutiful compliance with such laws, we 
proceed to examine the most important questions relating to the adminis- 
tration of sanitary laws and regulations. 
PRACTICAL POINTS TO BE KEPT IN VIEW. 
I. The Areas of Administration: As indicated by the nature of the 
duties to be performed by the sanitary authorities, and the requisite condi- 
tions for success of the duties, as defined by existing and progressive so- 
cial and governmental organization in the States, cities, and towns to be 
affected. 
11. The framing of certain General Laws, and the establishment of a cen- 
tral or State Board of Health in each State: For giving a systematic and 
enlightened direction to the sanitary administration, and to secure practical 
results and thoroughness in the application of general laws relating to the 
public health and vital statistics. 
111. The adaptation of methods of local administration best designed to se- 
cure popular support, and the effectual application of sanitary laws and regu- 
lations : This result to be sought by the encouragement and prudent aid 
to local administration, and the avoidance of unnecessary assumption of 
any local duties, or interference with local officers, without specific cause, 
by the State Board of Health. 
IV, The public influence and economy of a State System of Sanitary Admin- 
istration : To be attained through good results witnessed and approved 
under the local authorities, and through the local and general inquiries and 
reports instigated by the State Board, and by such gain to life and health 
as can be ascertained through the system of vital statistics. 
Practical ends that should be attained under the Local Administration, 
whatever the system : Mutual support of the State and Local functions in 
the Sanitary Administration. 
CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS. 
Areas of Sanitary Administration. Every State government, by its legis- 
lature, owes to the total population the enactment and provision of laws and 6 
GENERAL HEALTH LAWS AND LOCAL ORDINANCES. 
methods that shall be adequate to protect the general health of the people 
against those causes of sickness and mortality that cannot be adequately 
restrained without general provisions of law which shall either prescribe 
methods and proceedings, or require local authorities so to prescribe and 
proceed for the proper removal and prevention of unnecessary cause of 
danger and injury to life and health. 
The individual, the family, the employer, the hamlet, the town, and every 
city, has each its own responsibility and duty in avoiding and preventing 
injury to life and health. And were every individual, and each neighbor- 
hood and community properly informed, vigilant, wise, and dutiful, in the 
prevention of such injury, there would be a speedy and universal observ- 
ance of all the laws of health and personal safety as respects individuals, 
dwellings, villages, and cities. 
But still there are more widely extended and general causes of injury 
and peril to the public health which can be effectually controlled only by 
general laws and regulations, that shall provide methods and prescribe du- 
ties to be enforced by the proper authorities. This fact requires State 
enactments, whether in the nature of general laws defining the local and 
general obligations, or in the nature of a supreme central authority. It is 
necessary, therefore, that there should be a general statute relating to the 
organization and duties of boards of health, and that the General Sanitary 
Act shall specifically require that every township or every county shall organ- 
ize a local Board of Health, to give effect, as far as necessary, to the re- 
quirements and duties under the General Act. There is much reason to 
believe that the county area and the established and permissible methods 
of county administration, in most of the American States, will constitute 
the most natural and acceptable unit geographically and civilly for the 
local sanitary administration of communities ; and that towns and villages 
will, in most of the States, quite naturally and effectively organize and ad- 
minister their own respective health duties in connection with often as 
parts of the county system. One thing is certain, namely, that there 
should be thorough organization upon that civil and geographical basis 
which will afford greatest facility of efficient sanitary duties, and in the set- 
tlement of questions that may involve general expenditure, and some form 
of general authority for protecting the public health. This is witnessed in 
the duty of applying measures for protection against small-pox, and some 
other diseases, and for securing necessary drainage of malarial districts, 
the preservation of sources and of the purity of water supply, etc. 
The geographical extent and civil competency of the primary areas of 
sanitary administration will be found to have an important bearing upon 
the final success and economy of sanitary improvements. 
That the areas of sanitary administration —as regards the several 
branches and purposes of the public health service should correspond 
with the best arrangements of the civil government of town, village, county, 
and State, would seem to require no argument; but we may properly urge 
that in respect of all duties which relate to the prevention of general causes 
of disease, the spread of contagious and pestilent maladies, the provision GENERAL HEALTH LAWS AND LOCAL ORDINANCES. 
7 
for and the supervision of vaccination, the application of quarantine or any 
restrictive sanitary regulations, the sanitary management of general drain- 
age, and the supervision of returns and registration of Vital Statistics, the 
areas of administration should be determined by those limits and considera- 
tions which will secure the most perfect results and the largest degree of 
popular and intelligent support from the people. 
While it cannot be denied that if there were no existing boundaries and 
definitions of the areas or districts in which political or civil administration 
has certain defined limitations, it would be well if the areas in which sani- 
tary laws are to be separately administered were defined with reference to 
natural sanitary outlines and necessities, we must, as matters of civil and 
municipal administration now stand, conform in some degree to those 
primary organizations of the people which already exist. Hence it is that 
the city, town, and county precincts inevitably become for the present the 
most convenient primary areas of administration. If, however, no general 
sanitary supervision and authority exist in a State, the local administration 
of health laws would frequently fall far short of securing general protection 
of the people of the State against preventable causes of pestilential diseases. 
In the absence of unity of purpose and methods in the sanitary service of 
different municipalities and counties, one of the local administrations might 
be doing much to protect itself, while it actually drove outward into other 
localities infected persons and materials to imperil all portions of the 
State whither they went. This, indeed, is but the lesson of experience ; 
we have seen bedding and clothing which the sick and dead of small-pox, 
fever, and cholera had left behind them in care of the local sanitary author- 
ities, sold and conveyed beyond the jurisdiction of such officials, and thus 
putting in jeopardy communities more populous and less carefully protected. 
It may be laid down as a safe postulate, therefore That the reasons 
which require vigilant and specific local sanitary duties to be performed, 
likewise require that there should be central sanitary organization adapted 
to give any necessary counsel, aid, and authority to the local boards of health. 
Practically considered, the chief benefits from sanitary government will 
be insured most completely and permanently only when and where the 
masses of the people become interested, and will aid in giving such success. 
This, however, does not imply that each hamlet and town, much less that 
every little neighborhood should be left to itself, to become a nest of pesti- 
lence, or to produce Cretans and consumptive paupers, by neglecting sani- 
tary obligations that concern the county and the State. It was of the 
debased and ignorant sufferers from neglected drainage and cleanliness, 
and from domestic insalubrity, that Mr, Ruskin wrote when he exclaimed, 
“ . . . . They resist every effort to lead them into purity of habit and 
habitation, and to give them wholesomeness of air, as new interference 
with their liberty, .... insisting on their right to helpless death.” Such 
pestilence-breeding neighborhoods or premises must be brought under sav- 
ing sanitary regulations. County and State sanitary authorities need to be 
STATE ORGANIZATION ESSENTIAL TO LOCAL EFFICIENCY. 8 
GENERAL HEALTH LAWS AND LOCAL ORDINANCES. 
required, under General Health Laws to cooperate in giving any neces- 
sary enforcement to such regulations in any community, place, ground, or 
building that seriously endangers the public safety or the health and wel- 
fare of defenseless persons. 
The duty and adequate authority to organize the Local Boards of Health, 
and to administer the various and proper functions of such Board, being 
conferred upon the “supervisors,” “ chosen free-holders,” or other chief 
civil authority in the county (or in the town, or in the incorporated village, 
as the case may be), the central Board of Health of the State should be 
adapted and required to give completeness and efficiency to Health Laws. 
The maintenance of a proper system of Registration of Vital Statistics in 
the State requires that the primary returns of such statistics in every 
county, and, if practicable, in every town, should be supervised by the local 
sanitary authority. It is our duty to urge this function upon local sanitary 
authorities, and upon the States that have not yet organized a system of 
Vital Registration. It is confessed to be the special want, now, of the 
English Registration system. It is obviously the want of the State systems, 
thus far, in our country. The original vouchers, and the methods of the 
records for public registration of Vital Statistics need to be under the 
skilled supervision of the local sanitary authority, near to the sources of 
such vouchers and records. 
THE REGISTRATION OF VITAL STATISTICS. 
The final and central revision of the State Registration of Vital Statistics 
should be supervised by the State Board of Health, and, through the agency 
of that Board, the most directly useful purposes and publicly important in- 
formation of the Registers should be sought and published. Whether the 
State system of Registration is treated as a bureau of the Department of 
the Secretary of State or otherwise, still it needs the supervision of expert 
officers of public hygiene. The local registration especially requires such 
supervision, and no methods of vital registration will be satisfactorily cor- 
rect, as respects the records of diseases and mortality, unless such local as 
well as central supervision is provided. 
Uniformity in practice, and comparable results, can be secured in the 
methods and system of registration of Vital Statistics, and of the records of 
disease and of epidemic phenomena throughout all the States of North 
America whenever each State has a central Board of Health with reason- 
able supervisory authority over the Vital Registration. Such uniformity is 
greatly to be desired, and it appears to be the duty of all such sanitary 
authorities, in the United States, as already direct the public registration of 
Vital Statistics, to agree upon this duty of giving the highest practicable 
degree of uniformity to the methods and periodical abstracts of their regis- 
tration. 
The abatement, control, and prevention of Nuisances being uniformly rec- 
ognized as a duty of sanitary authorities, it is desirable that in each state 
and city, and in all sanitary acts and codes there should be a reasonably 
DEFINITION OF AND PROCEEDINGS AGAINST NUISANCES. GENERAL HEALTH LAWS AND LOCAL ORDINANCES. 
9 
uniform and strictly correct specification and definition of the term “ nui- 
sance ” and its special applications in health government. Evasion of the 
duty of obedience to sanitary laws, and the injurious perpetuation of nui- 
sances detrimental to health and life, will become less and less frequent 
whenever there are positive definitions and specific declarations of nuisances 
against health, which, in every community, shall be abated and prevented. 
The power and duty of the Board of Health to announce the presence and 
order the removal of whatever it finds to be a nuisance, should be undisputed, 
but the people generally must be allowed ample opportunity to understand 
the reasons and nature of the proceedings against nuisances. The provis- 
ions of a sanitary code ought not to be arbitrary. The importance of incit- 
ing the interest, inquiry, and support of the people, in proceedings against 
nuisances, should be understood by the legislative authorities or persons who 
frame the sanitary laws and ordinances. The provision that should be made 
in every sanitary code to give patient and sufficient “ hearing ” to persons 
prosecuted or enjoined under the health laws, should be so framed and so 
applied as to become a means of publishing the most important kinds of 
sanitary information and evidence. 
Instruction in human physiology and hygiene in the course of public 
school education and in all colleges and seminaries, would conduce to the 
prevalence of public regard for sanitary duties. Teachers of the public 
schools should be required, under the State laws relating to public health as 
well as those relating to public instruction, to sustain an examination in 
physiology and hygiene. The local boards of health should have authority 
to inspect all school-rooms, and to advise with the boards of education con- 
cerning matters affecting life and health. 
POPULAR INSTRUCTION IN PHYSIOLOGY AND HYGIENE. 
The State and local boards of health should be required by law to make a 
faithful sanitary inspection and inquiry in every hospital, medical dispensary, 
asylum, reformatory, and penal institution every year, and as much oftener 
as circumstances may warrant; and such inspections and duties should be 
carefully supervised in some degree by the State Board of Health aided by 
counsel or information given by the State Board of Public Charities. A 
chapter in each yearly report of the health boards, state and local,— 
should comprise a careful statement of results, etc., in this class of duties. 
The usefulness, dignity, or permanent influence and success of the local 
sanitary authority will be promoted if the State authority and aid can be ex- 
tended to the local officers, when proper, in matters of local inspection and 
inquiry upon subjects of general as well as local interest. The purpose and 
duty of harmonious cooperation between the State and local boards should 
be obvious to the people. By such influences may the people be kept inter- 
ested in the sanitary duties that pertain to their own localities and affairs. 
The centralization of authority relating to the administration of sanitary 
laws may become desirable at some future time, but it would be impolitic and 
contrary to the well known preferences of the people and the usages of civil 
government in the primary areas of political or civil organization, to control 10 
GENERAL HEALTH LAWS AND LOCAL ORDINANCES. 
the administration of health laws so as to fail to incite and even require the 
inhabitants to maintain and obey local authority. 
STATE BOARDS OF HEALTH. 
The experience and example of the central Board of Health in each of the 
six States that has organized such a State Board may now serve as useful 
guides to the successful organization of a State Board of Health in each 
State that will seek to establish a general sanitary system. Each State may 
require to have various and essential modifications of any frame-work of a 
general sanitary act that might be perfectly adapted to another common- 
wealth. The State law on this subject in Minnesota would not be completely 
adapted to the necessities of certain existing statutes and necessary usages in 
New York, or in Massachusetts, nor would the Massachusetts law answer 
for Minnesota, Michigan, Virginia, and California. It will be seen, upon' 
examination of the annexed outline of the special acts under which each of 
the five State Boards has respectively been established, that the friends of 
sanitary improvements in each State will manifestly need carefully to fore- 
cast the amount of general and intelligent cooperation which the people will 
put forth in the duties of sanitary administration. The law itself may and 
always should be an educator, but the laws and ordinances that are success- 
ful as educators must be so framed and administered as to elicit popular and 
exact inquiries and increase the general knowledge and appreciation of the 
objects for which such laws exist. 
The vital importance of local sanitary authority is already exemplified in 
every State of the Union: and the fact must be conceded, that the faithful- 
ness, efficiency, and permanency of good influence of the local boards of 
health in the rural districts, as well as in most larger towns, cannot be 
thoroughly secured without the central influence and certain kinds of author- 
ity of the State Board. 
Thus far each one of the State Boards has succeeded in awakening in 
the communities of the State an increased regard for the right and duty of 
every district, town, and neighborhood, to invoke the continued aids of law 
and instruction, to protect the interests of life and health. 
A Digest and Comparison of the leading features of the special Acts by 
which State Boards of Health have been established in Six States of the 
Union. 
STATE OF MASSACHUSETTS. 
“ Seven persons shall constitute the Board of Health, and Vital Statistics,” 
appointed by the Governor, “ with advice and consent of the council,” and 
hold office for seven years, one appointment or re-appointment being made 
every year. 
[By Act passed in June, 1869.] 
“ Sanitary investigations and inquiries in respect to the people, the causes 
of disease, and especially of epidemics,” constitute the chief duty of the Board. 
It also advises the government in regard to the location of public buildings. 
The Secretary is the executive and only salaried member of the Board. GENERAL HEALTH LA WS AND LOCAL ORDINANCES. 
There are nine members of the Board, a majority of whom are appointed 
by the Governor, and minority of the Municipal Council of New Orleans. 
This Board has full authority over all matters relating to “ Quarantine for 
the protection of the State.” It also has charge of the Sanitary Police and 
Health Government of New Orleans. 
BOARD OF HEALTH OF LOUISIANA. 
The powers of this Board are inadequate to the peculiar exigencies that 
are associated with the nature of yellow fever epidemics. But the chief de- 
fect in sanitary powers of the State of Louisiana, is that they do not require 
the establishment of local Health Boards in all the Parishes of the State. 
The Louisiana State Board of Health has not been commissioned or 
empowered to enter upon hygienic inquiries or the general duties which 
characterize the Massachusetts Board of Health. 
STATE BOARD OF HEALTH OF CALIFORNIA, 
This Board was organized in 1870. It consists of seven physicians, who 
hold office for four years. Their appointment is vested in the Governor 
alone. 
The functions of this Board are defined in the same concise and general 
phraseology as are those of the Massachusetts Board of Health, and by 
the Act its members were instructed to devise and report “ some scheme 
whereby medical and vital statistics of sanitary value may be obtained.” 
This Board was organized in the Spring of 1873. It consists of seven 
physicians, who hold office four years, under appointment from the Gov- 
ernor. 
STATE BOARD OF HEALTH OF MINNESOTA. 
The State Board is required to “ place themselves in communication with 
local boards of health, the hospitals, asylums, and public institutions 
throughout the State,” and “ take cognizance of the interests of health and 
life among the citizens generally.” To these duties are added all the func- 
tions which Massachusetts, Louisiana, and California have respectively 
assigned their State Boards of Health. 
A supplementary Act has enjoined upon every town and city in the State 
the duty of establishing a local board of health ; and the State Board is 
authorized to enforce this duty, and required to advise and aid the local 
board. 
The Secretary of State, who has general charge of vital statistics, under 
an old law, is required to seek the counsel and aid of the State Board of 
Health in the Bureau of Vital Registration. 
Organized in the Spring of 1872, and consisting of seven members, all 
of whom must be physicians, three being residents of the city of Rich- 
mond, and four from different sections of the State, this “ Board of Health 
and Vital Statistics” was set at work, with the strict injunction that it 
STATE BOARD OF' HEALTH OF VIRGINIA. 12 
GENERAL HEALTH LAWS AND LOCAL ORDINANCES. 
“ shall not in any way be a charge upon the State.” Its functions are pre- 
cisely like those of the State Board of California. 
STATE BOARD OF HEALTH OF MICHIGAN. 
This Board was organized this year. The phraseology of the Act to 
erect the Board, and define its functions, is so well adapted to aid the 
deliberations of the Public Health Association, that the chief sections are 
here quoted. It needs to be mentioned here that other laws in Michigan 
provide local boards of health to establish a system of Vital Statistics : 
“ Section x. The People of the State of Michigan enact, That a board is 
hereby established which shall be known under the name and stjde of the 
4 State Board of Health.’ It shall consist of seven members as follows : 
Six members who shall be appointed by the Governor with the consent of 
the Senate, and a secretary, as provided in section four of this act. The 
six members first appointed shall be so designated by the Governor that 
the term of office of two shall expire every two years, on the last day of 
January. Hereafter, the Governor, with the consent of the Senate, shall 
biennially appoint two members to hold their offices for six years, ending 
January thirty-first. Any vacancy in said board may be filled until the next 
regular session of the Legislature, by the Governor. 
“Sec. 2. The State Board of Health shall have the general supervision 
of the interests of health and life of the citizens of this State, They shall 
especially study the vital statistics of this State, and endeavor to make 
intelligent and profitable use of the collected records of deaths and of 
sickness among the people; they shall make sanitary investigations and 
inquiries respecting the causes of disease, and especially of epidemics; 
the causes of mortality, and the effects of localities, employments, con- 
ditions, ingesta, habits, and circumstances on the health of the people. 
They shall, when required, or when they deem it best, advise officers of 
the government, or other State boards, in regard to the location, drainage, 
water supply, disposal of excreta, heating, and ventilation of any public in- 
stitution or building. They shall from time to time recommend standard 
works on the subject of hygiene for the use of the schools of the State. 
“ Sec. 3. The board shall meet quarterly at Lansing, and at such other 
places and times as they may deem expedient. A majority shall be a 
quorum for the transaction of business. They shall choose one of their 
number to be their president, and may adopt rules and by-laws subject 
to the provisions of this act. They shall have authority to send their 
secretary, or a committee of the board to any part of the State, when 
deemed necessary to investigate the cause of any special or unusual disease 
or mortality. 
Sections 4 and 5 provide for the election and services of a Secretary, 
and specify his functions under the Board. 
Sections 6 and 7 relate to expenditures. 
“ Sec. 8. It shall be the duty of the health physician, and also of the 
clerk of the local board of health in each township, city, and village in this GENERAL HEALTH LAWS AND LOCAL ORDINANCES. 
13 
State, at least once in each year, to report to the State Board of Health 
their proceedings, and such other facts required, on blanks and in accord- 
ance with instructions received from said State Board, They shall also 
make special reports whenever required to do so by the State Board of 
Health. 
“ Sec. 9. In order to afford to this board better advantages for obtaining 
knowledge important to be incorporated with that collected through special 
investigations and from other sources, it shall be the duty of all officers of the 
State, the physicians of all mining or other incorporated companies, and 
the president or agent of any company chartered, organized, or transacting 
business under the laws of this State, so far as practicable, to furnish to 
the State Board of Health any information bearing upon public health 
which may be requested by said board for the purpose of enabling it better 
to perform its duties of collecting and distributing useful knowledge on this 
subject. 
“ Sec. 10. The Secretary of the State Board of Health shall be the 
Superintendent of Vital Statistics. Under the general direction of the Sec- 
retary of State, he shall collect these statistics, and prepare and publish 
the report required by law relating to births, marriages, and deaths.” 
Note. Since the meeting of the Association in 1873 the organization of 
a State Board of Health has been effected in Maryland, under a statute 
which confers similar powers to those exercised by most of the other State 
Boards. It consists of five members, all physicians, whose duties con- 
sist chiefly of exact sanitary inquiries and the encouraging of local sanitary 
organization and sanitary works. 
The Legislature of New Jersey at the close of its session, 1874, provided 
that a Sanitary Commission should be organized for the purpose of institut- 
ing a general examination into matters affecting the public health. The 
Commissioners, under that law, have at once set about their duties, and 
hope to conduct an inquiry which will enable them to prepare a project of 
law for securing the organization of efficient local boards of health, and 
inciting general attention to the proper registration of Vital Statistics. In 
this Commission the State Geologist and two other citizens eminently quali- 
fied to give practical assistance in its general inquiries and duties have been 
judiciously united with four medical men of skill and experience.