The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1876-02-03
The State Capital.
State Bonrd of Health.--Maine General
Hospital.

AUGUSTA, Feb 2, 1876
STATE BOARD OF HEALTH.
The matter presented to the Judiciary Com
mittee by Drs. French, Howe and Bracket, a
Committee of the Maine Medical Association,
address of DR.. French of Portland was an un.
answerable argument in favor of the establish
ment of Board of Health. DR.. French be-
gan by stating that, public health is wealth f;
that the average health and prosperity of a
community is measured by the average condi-
ton of the individuals who compose it. A
hardy, healthy race is the working capital Of
State or nation,-the producing capital. A
sickly people reflect their condition upon the
State. Crime is the natural offspring of disease
as the records of prisons show. Sanitary sci
ence has made rapid strides the past ten years,
and the majority of diseases are at least pre-
ventable, and those that are not yet discovered
to be so, may by sanitary measures be
future will be called to prevent dis
ease, rather than to cure The State
should sustain the same relation to the
public which the physician does to the family
to superintend, inteligently, the condition of
the health of the people. Legislators and
physicians have bsen resisting instead of pre-
venting diseases; seeking to control them in
stead of wardng off. Some diseases have
been entirely extinguished by hygienc effort,
others have been modified and subdued, like
the small pox. In the last century one small
tenth Of the entire population died of
pox. while another tenth were disfgured for
life. Under the practice of vaccination, the
defamation is reduced to little more than
one in a hundred. He alluded to the fatality
OF the disease known as scarlet fever, which
| r6QulraS inst pffactiua for
removal as small pox. If this disease
is eluded in childhood, the person will be
likely to escape in adult life. He would apply
the same course to the treatment of measles.
Typhoid fever is embraced in the class of pre-
ventable diseases. This disease is propagated by
decaying organic matter, coming through i'm
pure air, water or food. He claimed that the
cattle disease could be prevented here, as it had
been prevented in other countries 1t cost
Massachusetts $4,000 to get rid of pleuro pneu-
monia in cattle that might have been pre-
vented. Some of these diseases are fatal to
human beings, such as those carbuncular dis
eases which have proved so fatal. He claimed
That an those diseases are contagious and pre-
Ventable, and our resource sagainst them are
properly sanitary measures. One of the pur-
poses of State Board Of Health would be the
inspection of diseased meats. In London alone
such an inspection has condemned hundred
tons ina single year. The transportation of
animals often causes the disease He then
considered the disease known as the pulmonary
consumption, which usually destroys in our c0un-
try 5000, 00O This could be CONT acted by the in
fiuence of vtiated air. Consumption can be
generated even in healthy animals by close!con-
flnement, bad air, and absence of sunlight. He
spoke of the cess pools of corruption, of breath
ings of death from sewers and nuisances of va
rious kinds, and of lily ventilated school houses
and other public places. He said we had not SO
much to fear from great epidemics, as we have
from the silent ever operating forces of disease
familiar TO our daily life. He showed the nec-
essity of the proposed Board for the benefit of
the country, as well as the city; that it was for
the masses of the people. Nine states have
established such boards and he hoped that this
would be accomplished in Maine during the
Centennial year.
The above is but an imperfect analysis of The
points made by DR.. French, which were en-
forced by illustrations. 'The law" the DR..
thinks, sis great informer."
MAINE GENERAL HOSPITAL.
As stated in yesterdays dispatches, the feel
ing in favor::of the Maine General Hospital is
much better than last year. The report, which
shows that but twelve of eighty cases treated
there the past year are from Portland shows
that it is anything but local institution. But
if that was the case as one member from the
interior of the state sensibly puts it, eve
ought to vote Portland $4,000 since the people
OF that city have made no opposition TO the mill
tax BY which they pay out $4,000 year more
than they get and on account of the free high
school law $1,000 more than they get.'' But
beyond all this those who have been treated at
the hospital living in various parts Of the state,