SANITARY WORK. 
To the County Medical Societies, State of N. Y. 
The Chairman of the Committee on Hygiene, of the Medical Society 
of the State of New York, takes this occasion to suggest to the various 
County Society Committees on Hygiene throughout the State, the pro- 
priety of organization for systematic sanitary work. All the county 
societies have by this time received the Transactions of the State Society 
for 1875, containing the second report on Defective Drainage as a cause 
of disease in the St"te of New York. And while there are several 
county society committees which have not yet completed their reports 
on that subject, there are others anxious to proceed with the investiga- 
tion of other subjects. Therefore, that no disposition to labor in this 
field may be lost, the following classified schedule, comprehending a 
selection of subjects of inquiry more or less applicable to all is sub- 
mitted, with the hope of eliciting many special reports. 
Air.— Importance of purity; space; impurities from special causes; 
analysis; diseases produced by impurities ; warming; clothing; ventila- 
tion. 
Water.—Supply; means of distribution; source; quantity; quality 
analysis ; diseases caused by impurities; purification. 
Habitation.— Boundary, district, division, domicile ; climatology ; 
physical geography ; geology ; meteorology ; humidity ; buildings—new 
and old ; churches, ventilation of; church yards and church vaults ; school- 
houses ; factories ; institutions ; prisons—comprehending structure, build- 
ing material, organization, care, food and water supply ; space ; aeration ; 
disposal of slops ; house and soil drainage ; in short, their relations to the 
health of their occupants and surroundings in all respects. 
Epidemics and Endemics. ; control; disinfection ; destruc- 
tion ; prevention. 
Education.—Childhood and youth, provision for; ages; mental and 
physical; hours in school ; home study ; precautions for preserving and 
protecting health ; professional education—physicians, coroners, nurses, 
midwives. 
Drugs and Drug Establishments.—Apothecaries, qualifications of; 
dispensing medicines ; poisons—safeguards; miscellaneous medicine-tak- 
ing, quackery; “ opium eating ; ” intemperance ; therapeutic value of alco- 
holic liquors; diseases caused by alcohol; alcoholic impurities as a cause 
|t>f disease; analysis of alcoholic ljquors. 
W^MarineW^yieue.—X\v space ; effects of the impure air of 
vessels on merchandise; vehtilatfon ; food and water; clothing; sanitary 
relation* respectively of sailjpir and stearin vessels ; canal-boats ; fuel; 
cargo; stowage in relation to health; antiscorbutics; relative liability 
of articles of commerce to infection; portability of oisease; passenger 
vesst ; in.mb , commemal diseased; quar*r»Um. 
Nuiswic s ?—Means of abatement. 
Vit<fl Statistics.—Births, marriages, diseases and deaths ; life expecta- 
tion™ the United States in the aggregate ; in regard to whole period of 
life; liraQexpITctation of the diseased —phthisis,.Bright’s disease, heart dis- 
ease, of any diathesis; registration of diseases. 
Attention is invited to the following resolution adopted by the State 
society, 1873 : 
“ That the Secretary be instructed to urge upon the County Societies the import- 
ance of having Committees on Hygiene in co-operation with the standing Committee 
on Hygiene of the State Society, and that the investigations of >aid committees in 
this regard, on the approval of their respective County Societies, be forwarded to the 
Committee on Hygiene of the State Society in time to be summarized by that com- 
mittee in their annual report.” — lE' 
A. N. Bell, M. D , 
Ch. of the Com. on Hygiene, Med. Soc. State of N. Y. 
Brooklyn, N. Y., Sept. 1, 1875.